I don’t know if entitled is a strong enough word to summarize the behavior of these parents and their children. Is it just me, or does this seem to be the norm these days? Content edited for clarity.
Hot Head In The Waiting Room
“I have a son who is on the autism spectrum as a low-functioning individual. He was seven at the time and he had speech deficits.
We were in the doctor’s waiting room, where there were tons of toys for the kids to play with. The waiting room was mostly empty, except for me, my son, another kid, and his mom. We had gotten there first, and as we were waiting, my son grabbed a truck and began to play with it.
Then ‘Mommy’ and ‘Bubba’ checked in and sat down. Bubba went to the toys and looked around. None of those toys would do it. Then he saw the truck my son had and demanded he hands it over.
My son couldn’t tell him no. There were also a lot of trucks that the boy could have played with, but he just had to have the one my son was playing with. So he tried to snatch it from my son’s hand. I stepped in and said, ‘Kid, there are other trucks for you to play with. Leave him alone.’
My son then turned away from Bubba, so Bubba tried to reach around to grab it. My son merely leaned back, causing Bubba to lose his balance and fall on his butt. Bubba looked shocked. My son went back to playing with the truck, oblivious.
I looked over at Mommy, who was furious. She yelled, ‘WELL, AREN’T YOU GOING TO SAY SOMETHING TO YOUR KID FOR KNOCKING MINE OVER?!’
‘You’re right, I should,’ I replied, ‘Dustin…buddy…good job standing up for yourself.’
Just then our names were called. I personally made sure that Dustin got to go in with that truck, as it kept him calm.
I don’t know what Bubba was there for, but I’m sure the doctor probably had to give his mom something to keep her from having a stroke.”
Mama Bear
“When my daughter was 12 months old, she still couldn’t walk and was crawling only. I took her to the indoor park at my local mall in her wheelchair with her little leg braces. There was a boy around 7 or 8 years old and too tall to be in the park (height restrictions set on the park set at 3ft). His mom was just watching her phone and looked up when we walked in with her wheelchair and looked at us.
My daughter was trying to climb the stairs to go down the slide. The first time the boy walked up, he pushed my daughter out of the way to go up the stairs ahead of her. I went up and grabbed her because she almost fell off the top step. The second time he walked up, he pushed her all of the way off the stairs before I could catch her. I very loudly said, ‘Are you kidding me!?’
And his Mom heard me saying that. She got up and started yelling at me saying I could have just gone to her and told her what he was doing and I didn’t need to yell at her kid. I didn’t say it to her kid. I said it to my friend who was next to me with her newborn. This lady got in my face. So I handed my daughter to my friend and got in her face yelling about how it was the second time her son pushed my daughter that obviously has special needs off of the stairs. I told her she needed to pay more attention to her kid who was too big to be in the park in the first place. I mentioned how she saw us come in with her in a wheelchair, clearly saw that my daughter even has a helmet and leg braces on her legs and yet she didn’t care that her much older son thought it okay to push her off the stairs.
I am very unconfrontational and my friend had never seen me that mad. She was afraid I was going to get into a physical fight with her. I told the lady to watch her kid better and sat down. The lady left 3 minutes later. I felt proud of myself. Thank god she left.”
Like Mother Like Daughter
“I went shopping for a particular Barbie for my niece’s birthday. I couldn’t see it on the shelves, but when I spoke to a member of staff she very kindly went out the back and managed to find one for me. I was just thanking her when a little girl ran up, squealing, ‘Mummy, that’s the Barbie!’
The employee said she was sorry, but I had the last one and there wouldn’t be more for a few days. The mother asked me if she could have it, to which I said no as my niece had been looking forward to it. The child went into demon mode, screaming, ‘Mummy!’ at the top of her voice. The woman asked again, saying her daughter was getting really upset. I again said no and tried to walk away. She then followed me, saying loud enough for customers to hear that I’d made her daughter cry.
That was it for me. Even though her child’s wailing had settled into a whimper by this point, no one wants to be publicly accused of that. It was obvious that this woman was used to getting what she wanted and her daughter had learned from her mother’s example. She knew making noise would get her what she wanted, and couldn’t understand it not working in a shop when it clearly worked at home. I shocked the mom with my words.
I told the woman that (a) no child was entitled to get everything they wanted, (b) she should be aiming to raise a child with good manners, not a misplaced sense of entitlement, and (c) if she wasn’t careful, her only success would be in raising a child as bratty as herself.
I didn’t shout or swear, but I was very clear and she was so shocked that someone had stood up to her that she went the other way and started begging me for it. I told her that she had been very rude and wasn’t getting the doll from me, so if she wanted to go back to screeching and being abusive she was welcome to. Several people were watching by now, and they openly laughed when I told them what had happened. What made her finally shut up? Another customer told her that she sounded like she needed a doll herself and should be quiet otherwise she’d end up on Facebook looking like a fool.”
All In A Good Days Work
“I’m not a parent, but I’m a lifeguard at a local waterpark. If you’ve ever been to a huge waterpark, like Universal or Disney, then you know that there are these tall towers attached to water slides.
That day, my job was to guard one of our most popular slides for maintenance. There are a total of like 6 slides on that tower, including two that put you in a tube and drop you. I basically had to tell everybody in the park one by one that the tower (and therefore every slide on it) was closed as they tried to enter.
Another piece of important context: the park that I work for has this membership tiers, and the highest one has different benefits that include, early access to the park, preferred and free parking, large discounts on merchandise and food, either free or extremely discounted fast passes, and preferred seating in places like the theater in the next door theme park and in the shade at the waterpark. This is called the Diamond Elite Membership. Now don’t get me wrong, most of these members are really nice and just want to have a good time with their families. However, there are a few who are just a little too entitled.
So this tower that I’m guarding is right next to the diamond seating (this will be important in a sec). I’m just doing my thing, informing guests that the tower is down, apologizing for the inconvenience, and recommending other slides. Then enters this child. He walked over to me and I told him, ‘I’m sorry but this entire tower is closed today due to maintenance. If you want-‘
He interrupted me and asked me if every slide individually was open, with my same response of the entire tower being closed. After he realized that I was not going to let him up, he (a child who was at least 13 years old) called for his ‘mommy.’ She came running and gave me this nasty look when I told her to walk. She, already annoyed, asked her kid what the problem was. He said that the ‘mean lifeguard’ wouldn’t let him ride the slides.
When she asked me why, I told her that the entire tower was closed to ALL GUESTS due to maintenance. She then held up her lanyard with her Diamond Elite Membership card in it and said, ‘Are you blind? Can you not see that we are Diamond Elite Members? That obviously doesn’t apply to us. Let my son up that tower now!’
I responded with a simple, ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but this tower is closed to all guests today due to maintenance.’
She then tried to tell me (more like scream at me) multiple times that closed to all guests didn’t apply to her son because they were Diamond Elite Members. At this point, they were being so loud I didn’t even need to call over the head guard (the lifeguards who watch the other lifeguards and make sure that they are doing their jobs) in my area. He just came over himself. But before he got there, the woman pointed up to the top of the tower and said, ‘Well if my kid can’t go and ride the slides then why are those people up there?’
I looked up and saw that there were people at the top of the tower. They were in bright orange vests and hard hats. So I responded with, ‘The maintenance workers? They’re doing maintenance on the slides.’
Now, this is when the child went full Dudley Dursley and started crying about how it was not fair and he wanted to ride the slides, and his entire day was ruined. Now, this was when I lost all sympathy for them. These memberships are expensive. That means nobody would buy them without the intention of coming back at least enough times to make the payment worth it. They could simply come back to the park later as it would cost them no extra money and ride the slides then. Also, she said I needed to call over a supervisor or a manager so that she could have me fired.
At that point, with nothing less than perfect timing, my head guard finally got over to where I was and heard the story. They tried to tell him I was being extremely rude and I needed to be fired for not doing my job. My head guard said the EXACT SAME THING THAT I DID and she went on this whole rant saying things like, ‘What the f*ck is wrong with you? Are you all missing brain cells? This little sh*t here doesn’t understand that the customer is always right and you should too! Where’s your manager I want you both f*cking fired right now!’
My head guard then said the best thing ever, ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry but this is a family-friendly park. On top of harassing this lifeguard about benefits that you don’t have, you are also using language that is prohibited in the park. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’
Long story short, she refused and security was called over. She and her family were removed from the park and then I went back to doing my job.”
Send Her The Bill
“We had a few people over for a cookout/bonfire and a couple of my friends and I were playing guitar. After playing a few songs I put my guitar in its case and was having a conversation with a couple of guests. Suddenly I heard banging on guitar strings, not playing, hard banging.
I looked and realized that a 5-year-old boy had taken my $2000.00 Taylor acoustic guitar out of its case and had it laying on the wooden deck. He was beating on the strings while his mother, an acquaintance of my girlfriend, laughed and took pictures. I didn’t just say no, I yelled no from about 30 feet away. He just looked at me, grinned, and hit it again. By that time I was there and he ran to his mother. I asked her why she would let him do that and she said, ‘It’s a guitar, it’s just a toy.’
I told her how much that ‘toy’ cost, and that I would be taking it to the shop to see if there was any damage and sending her the bill. She said, ‘You shouldn’t spend that much money on something you don’t really need.’
I asked her, ‘Don’t you drive a $60,000 Lexus?’
She said, ‘I don’t like to stifle his creativity.’
I responded with exasperation, ‘Great. You and he can go to your house and let him creatively destroy all of your stuff that he wants, but around here children don’t touch things that don’t belong to them without permission.’
She was so insulted that she grabbed her son and the 6-pack of cheap beer that she brought and stormed off.
My girlfriend told me later that she had already told the boy no, and asked the woman to control her son when he was getting ice out of the cooler and throwing it at people. Another friend told me that she came with the 6-pack of cheap beer, then started drinking the imported beer that they brought. So I guess the little guy was only acting the way he was taught.”
