Why, oh why, Mr. and Mrs. Yuppie First-time Homeowner, would you even think about bringing your four kids to Home Depot?
I understand that you probably don’t get to spend a lot of time together as a family, what with Mr. Yuppie working 80 hours a week at Merrill Lynch and Mrs. Yuppie working almost as hard selling advertising for Conde Nast. But let’s get one thing straight… Home Depot Time is not Family Time.
Your 5-year-old is standing on top of a bundle of cedar shingles and is screaming at the top of his lungs directly into my ear while I’m trying to pick out sheets of plywood. Meanwhile, you two are halfway across the store, nodding at one another while looking at gaudy plastic mailboxes. Your 3-year-old is trying his best to get his testicles caught in the paint-shaking machine. Where the fuck are you? Ho-hum, you’re picking out a new brass knocker for the front door.
Not paying attention, are you, Mr. and Mrs. Yuppie? Maybe while you’re distracted I’ll decide to teach you a lesson. Maybe it really pisses me off to have your 5-year-old screeching in my ear. Maybe I’ll pick up this 6 foot 4x4 and swat your kid Derek Jeter-style into the Lawn & Garden section…
Home Depot is not a place for kids. But more importantly, Home Depot is not a place for young parents who are so freaking dumb that they will let their young kids run around unsupervised in a warehouse store that is a virtual deathtrap.
I hope your 2-year-old decides to toddle over to the power tools section. Really I do. I do miss seeing Uncle Darwin in action.
Oh, poor, dear THespos, soon you will learn that it’s taboo to criticise the behavior of anyone’s children at the SDMB.
Your homework is to write, “I am not a parent amd I cannot possibly imagine what it’s like,” and “It is unreasonable of me to expect people to control their children in public,” three hundred times each. Then compose a five-hundred word story entailing a fanciful set of circumstances, possibly including some sort of family door-knocker crisis, develomental or behavioral disorders (on the part of the children, not their parents), and/or psychic powers that All Good Parents Have that completely exhonorate them from any hint of wrong-doing in the scenario you ahve described below.
How about not bringing kids there in the first place?
Trust me, I used to work in Pergament (a warehouse store similar to Home Depot). Kids just don’t belong there. The dude who drove the forklift was basically drunk all day. There are oodles of sharp saw blades, utility knives, hedge clippers, shishkebab skewers and pipe cutters, all within a kid’s grasp. Not to mention all the herbicides, pesticides, paint thinner, muriatic acid and all sorts of poisonous chemicals all over the place.
I stand by my original assertion: You’ve got to be an idiot to even bring your kids there, much less let them roam free in the store.
I will say this. I disagree that Home Depot is no place for children. However, one should know that if you take kids in there, you better keep them in line because it’s a freaking dangerous place and there are lots of potential troublespots/injuries/nuisances around every corner. Bring your kids ONLY IF they’re well-behaved, can be contained, or as adults you outnumber them.
I mean, come on, I’m supposed to hire a babysitter before Mr. Cranky & I go choose a light fixture? Frankly, Cranky Jr is at such a butthead stage right now, we DON’T in fact take him to any place like that. If we both have to go to any store, we generally do it when we yes, have a babysitter. But that’s because we know Cranky Jr is two and a real pain in the ass in a retail environment. I’m not that big a masochist, and I don’t care to inflict him on the other shoppers. He’d be contained in the cart (only safe place for a two-year-old in that sort of store) but his hollering alone rules out trying it.
When he’s five, I don’t expect to have this problem.
Are you sure? My hand is still cramped from writing, “I should be happy that children scream while I eat pizza because their parents probably haven’t left the house in a year,” over and over. But I’ve learned my lesson.
And if you do have this problem when your kid is five, the solution is easy! You just become a shut-in if you can’t afford to find a babysitter who is happy and/or competent to look after your demon spawn. God forbid if people with difficult kids go out in public and disturb those who chose not to breed.
I do take the Primaflorettes to the hardware store. They are either shackled to my side or trussed in a trolley.
Home Depot is open to the public. If you don’t like it, stay home. The world is filled with kids and jerks who hate them. Frankly I’d rather spend a whole afternoon with a busload of kids of various ages than 5 minutes with an uptight jerk who can’t comprehend this. The kids excuse is that they are kids and don’t know any better. Jerks who hate kids have no excuse. Not that I have an opinion or anything.
All summer I have had the care of my 10 yr old, a 9yr old rental, and my almost 6 yr old. I take them lots of places, movies, the beach, groceries, and the hardware store. We march like little soldiers, me first, then the 6 yr old, then the 9, following up is the 10 yr old. I say: “lets get in our line up” and they do.
Why?
Because I said so.
If you dont have control of your kids, a hardware store trip is as irresponsible as leaving them in a locked car with the window up.
OTOH, if you never take them anywhere, how will you teach them how to behave? It doesnt sound like the couple in the OP was using this as a teaching moment though.
Personally, I don’t hate kids, but when I am deep into that zombified shopping mode that retailers try so hard to foster, I do have a problem with having to listen to ten minutes of near-ultrasonic screaming and wailing over matters as having to sit in a shopping trolley or not being allowed to touch a certain item. It just happens to be kids who do most of that.
But I’ve learned my lesson.
