When I was such a pain that my mom pulled the plug it was an all stop, leave the cart in the aisle we’re done. I remember going hungry once because there was no food in the house and the explanation from mom was pretty straight forward: grocery store was supposed to happen after where you had your temper tantrum, so there’s no food, too bad. And that was in the days before 24 hour grocery stores, so breakfast had to wait too. With both parents former Marines the boundary lines at home were starkly defined and strictly enforced, I’m tempted to say brutally enforced but that brings up images of spankings and those didn’t happen too often. Which is probably the big source of my impatience with undisciplined behavior in kids in public, so often I see kids doing stuff that would have gotten a world of hurt landed on me and the parent’s just cruising like nothing is happening. Maybe I’m jealous of what they can get away with ;)
My wife would do that too - pretty sure nobody went hungry though! And they NEVER got to buy any treats at the store. Although there might have been a treat waiting at home if things went well.
Unfortunately, kids get away with a lot these days because everyone is so afraid of getting sued, their kids taken away, etc... I’ve heard and witnessed way too many horror stories not to be cautious to the extreme myself. Sometimes a good swift whack on the backside is the only way to get through to an unreasonable child, but in public that will get your kids taken away in a heartbeat. Dealing with DHHS anywhere is demoralizing, almost impossible, and wholly ridiculous to the point of being unrealistic. I believe the best term would be egregious and quite possibly cost prohibitive.
at any rate, people are trepidacious because of this, and rightly so. this just adds to the problem and creates the perception you have formed (regardless of if it is founded or not, which is not what I’m getting at in this discussion).
I certainly see your point, I’m just trying to state the position many parents are put in. Some on this thread have acted as though parents go out of their way to inconvenience others with their children being whiny and all. All I am saying is that in most cases its not overt and generally most parents I have witnessed in these situations react as I’ve described - deal with the child as well as possible in public, move on and get gone (usually). Not everyone fits that mold and certain cliques/locales may be worse than others. No easy answers, and some people are just terrible parents no matter what anyone says - I just like to believe they are a very small minority.