Just because someone has a baby, that doesn't automatically make them a good parent. In fact, some people don't deserve to be parents at all. Whether it's neglect or turning them into a spoiled brat, these parents need a parenting class. Some of them actually need to be locked up! Content has been edited for clarity.
It Was Her Mom’s Dream For Her To Have The Solo, Not Her Own
“An irate mother of a girl in a private school’s music program made a big scene in front of the faculty and students because her daughter had not been selected to sing a solo in a school concert.
The student had been clear to the faculty that she didn’t want the part, nor was her voice suited for it. Still, her overbearing mother insisted that she audition against her will.
As a result, the girl was yanked out of the school she loved by her parents and embarrassed, all because the mother’s ego required that her daughter be ‘the shining star’ in front of others.”
It Was Like “He Wasn’t Even Allowed This One, Small Pleasure”
“I was standing outside a supermarket a couple of years back when a woman walked out, toddler in a pushchair and a kid who might have been about seven or eight years old walking a few feet behind her.
The older kid had a small, rubber ball and was bouncing it on the ground and catching it. He seemed perfectly happy; it wasn’t making any noise or bouncing around or anything; it wasn’t bothering anyone. He was bouncing and catching his ball as he walked.
The woman noticed this after a minute, spun around and grabbed him, hard, by the upper arm and then shouted right into his face, ‘If you keep bouncing that ball, I’m going to SMASH YOUR FACE IN!’ Then she shook him hard, once, then just turned around and walked on with the pushchair.
The poor kid just looked so empty. Like he wasn’t even allowed this one small pleasure.”
He’d Saved All His Pennies And Nickels For Forever, But She Spent It In One Night
“When I was a cashier, a mom came in with her son’s piggy bank. The kid was with her and must have only been about six years old. He wanted to buy a candy bar with his money, but the mom told him no, that his money was going to help support the family.
She then proceeded to buy a six-pack and some smokes with the money while the kid watched. The poor boy had tears in his eyes the whole time.
I refused service to her and the manager ended up ringing her up. She was paying with mostly pennies and nickels, and while she was distracted, I saw the boy walk over to the candy rack and wipe the tears from his eyes.
I asked him what was wrong and he told me it had taken him years to save that money, but his mom didn’t have a job, so she took it from him.
I bought him the candy bar he wanted and gave him a bunch of quarters for the gumball/toy machines.
His mom saw him trying to get one of those sticky hands from the machine and took all the quarters he had from him.
Forget that lady.”
The Dad Was A Big Tough Guy In The Store, But He Soon Got What Was Coming To Him
“A few years ago, I was in a ShopKo, and a dad was walking around looking at watches with three kids, I’d guess nine, eleven, and fourteen years old. All three were single file, following him while staring at the ground and not saying a word. Then a fourth kid, maybe 17 years old, walked up holding a printed t-shirt that was on clearance for $4. He said, ‘Hey Dad, this is only $4.’
Before he could say another word, the dad stepped up toe to toe to him, snatched the shirt out of his hand, and threw it on the ground. He said, in a hushed, gravely teeth-cliched yell, ‘Why would I spend money for you on a stupid t-shirt when you don’t even do the laundry!’ To put this in perspective, the dad was maybe five feet five inches and about 130 pounds. The 17-year-old son was a good six feet four inches and well over 200 pounds.
I stood a couple feet away from them, waiting for the son to lay out his dad, but instead, the son said, ‘Sorry,’ while staring at the ground. Then the dad began to excoriate his son and the other three kids with increasing volume and intensity for nearly a minute. I mean, calling them everything under the sun to the point where the three younger ones were crying and the oldest son had turned around and refused to look at his screaming father. The dad took exception to that and was circling his oldest while grabbing at his face to force him to look him in the eyes.
Another guy and I stepped in and I said, ‘Hey, calm down buddy. It’s a $4 shirt, you’re losing your mind over nothing. Look at your kids crying, dude. Why put them through this for a $4 shirt?’
And he just stared at me with this facial expression I’d never seen before and said, ‘You are not my family and you are not allowed to intervene in my family matters.’
That just set me off, so I got right up to his face. With a big smile, I said, ‘You have two children that are already much bigger than you, soon it’s going to be four and it’s only going to be a matter of time before one of them whoops your butt, you arrogant sicko, and you better hope it’s only one of them.’
He stood there, shocked, his mouth agape. Then he looked at his oldest son and said, ‘Don’t get any ideas, moron,’ and we all went our separate ways. A year later, I saw on the news that the 14-year-old shot the dad when he walked in on him beating the mother. The dad didn’t die, but all the kids got taken from the home. I know the 17-year-old, who is 23 now, and he is a messed up dude. Tragic.”
It Was Just An Honest Mistake, But He Still Screamed At Her Til She Was In Tears
“I worked in retail for years. I saw a lot of stupid stuff, and even more related to kids/parenting, but there were two that came to mind.
First was a girl and her dad coming in to return a CD she purchased. At the time (not sure if it’s the same), the policy was CDs (DVDs as well) could only be exchanged for the same title when defective due to copyright and the ease of pirating it. The guy at customer service explained the policy and apologized. The dad turned to the girl (who was about nine years old), got in her face, and started yelling, telling her she should have read the policy before opening it and that she ‘needed to know what she was buying.’ Just screaming nearly incoherently until this girl was in tears.
The guy at customer service told the guy to shut up and stop yelling at her. The dad turned to him and started to yell at him. When I talked to the customer service guy later, he said he figured a guy with that temper would turn it on him and at least he spared the girl more verbal abuse. In the end, due to all the yelling and the fact it was a CD, our manager made an exception, let them exchange it.
The second story is quite a bit worse. We were remodeling the store and were moving the car audio department to a new location, which meant that after the store closed, a bunch of us would stay overnight, move shelves, product, etc. On the third night, we were doing this around 11:30 p.m., when a little kid walked out of one of the aisles, rubbing his eyes like he just woke up. He saw us, started screaming, then another kid (11-12 years old) came running out from behind a box in appliances.
At first, we just thought they fell asleep, so we called the police. When the two kids saw the police, they started crying and explaining how their mom and her boyfriend had hidden them there and they were supposed to open the side door when the clock shows 12. They brought out a wristwatch with the alarm set for midnight. The cops had us all move our cars to the side of the building, so they were not visible from the street and when the parents knocked, it wasn’t their kids that opened the door.”
After Learning Why John Need A Can, This Girl’s Mom Couldn’t Contain Her Rage
“This happened years ago when I was about ten years old.
My mom had this friend, we’ll call her Patty for the sake of this story. Well, one day, there was a knock at the door. My mom went and opened it to find Patty’s son, John, who was only about five years old at the time. His mom was sitting in the car in our driveway, and he was just standing there by himself.
My mom said, ‘Hey there John, what brings you guys here today?’
Little John then replied, ‘Mom said to ask if you have a can.’
Mom said, ‘A can? Like a soda can?’
John said, ‘I don’t know. She said she needs a can so she can smoke her rock.’
My mom fumed with anger over this. She said, ‘John, go inside. Close the door and don’t look outside.’
So John came in, and I put some cartoons on for him to watch. I then peeked out the window whilst he was occupied with the show.
My mom was screaming at Patty through her open car window. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but they were both screaming at each other. And then my mom punched Patty in the face through the open window, pulled open her door, dragged her out of the car onto the driveway pavement by her hair, and beat the everloving sin out of the woman.
After she finally let Patty go, Patty got up, got back into her car, and drove away, with her son still in our house. Luckily, my mom was friends with Patty’s brother-in-law (which is how we knew her in the first place), and she called him, who in turn called the kid’s grandpa (since he himself was at work) to come and get John. The grandpa apologized for Patty’s behavior and took John home with him.”
Someone Should Teach That Dad A Lesson In Tool Safety
“My dad has anger issues. One time, when I was young, he was working on our backyard deck because it was falling apart. He was irritated and angry, so I wanted to cheer him up. I walked up to him and handed him his hammer and said, ‘Here is your hammer, Daddy,’ or something like that.
He yelled, ‘YOU DO NOT TOUCH MY TOOLS,’ and threw the hammer on the floor. It bounced off the floor, and the sharp end hit me square in the forehead, right above my eye. I just wanted to help my dad, and it nearly cost me my vision.”
The Mom Was Totally Fine With The Kid Playing In The Street
“I was driving along my street when this 5-year-old kid rolled out of a driveway on a tricycle. I came to a stop and waited for him to get out of my way, as he seemed to be doing on his own. His mother came running down the driveway and just started screaming at me rather than get her kid out of the road.
Another car came up behind and, without waiting, began to just go around, clipping the kid’s tricycle, knocking him on the ground. The lady just screamed at me even more.
She wouldn’t stop or get out of the way. I finally held my horn down until she gathered her kid up and got out of the way.”
Once He Saw His Son In Tears, He Sprang Into Action, But Not In A Good Way
“I was at a child’s birthday party at a friend’s house. There was a trampoline in the backyard and a group of children jumping on it. One boy, probably six or seven years old, took a weird fall and thwacked his head against a support. It was one of those ‘Ooooooohhh,’ moments, seeing it happen. He started crying, and I instinctively started towards him, saying, ‘Hey buddy, you ok?’
But before I could finish, his dad came barreling out of the house, shouting, ‘WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT CRYING?! WHAT DID I TELL YOU? I DON’T WANT TO SEE THAT! YOU’RE NOT A BABY!’
I said, ‘Hey, take it easy, he took a hard fall!’
He glared back at me and said, ‘He’ll be fine! He needs to learn!'”
He Was An Unhinged Man Who Shouldn’t Have Ever Been Around Children
“I was waiting in line for a ferry in Washington state. The guy next to me obviously did not know I was looking at him, and he turned around and smacked the heck out of his crying toddler while his daughter was watching. He hit the toddler at least seven times in a fit of rage. He looked over, noticed I was watching, and tried to pretend nothing happened.
I got out of my truck and started to head over to the bomb dog cop they had around. As I was heading over there, he ran up, stopped me, and asked me what I thought I was doing. I kept trying to get around him without a confrontation, but he kept pushing me. I was able to sneak by, but he tripped me. I got up walked into plain view of the officer, and the dude punched me in the back of the head then spit in my face. The officer saw all of this, came up and put the guy in cuffs. All of this was in view of the small children in his car.
So I took a punch and got spat in my face, but in the end, the children were taken into protective custody and I pressed charges. There was another witness to the guy hitting the kid and they had security footage of the guy assaulting me, so I didn’t even have to go to court!”
She Blamed Her Daughter, Though It Clearly Wasn’t Her Fault
“A few years ago, I was waiting at a bus stop when I saw a mother and daughter (maybe three years old) in a rush to catch a bus. Except it was the mother in a rush, pulling and yelling at the daughter to hurry up. Mind you, toddlers have short legs and aren’t fast, or maybe don’t understand urgency. The poor kid was trying. They missed the bus and the mother shouted at the kid, ‘Look at what YOU did! We missed the bus!’
‘I’m sorry, Mommy,’ while looking confused and on the verge of crying.
Honestly, the kid looked light enough to carry; the mother didn’t have a stroller or anything to carry besides her purse. This is the drama that will make a kid think they are to blame when they continue to grow up treated that way.”
She Was Too Busy Enjoying Her Movie To Parent Her Kids
“I was at a movie theater, sitting in the fourth or fifth row with friends. This was a rated R movie. Two kids, maybe 4 and 7 years old, were in the audience. They started playing and running back and forth to the front of the theater. The 4-year-old fell and started to cry, the mom didn’t bother to get up. My friend went to console the child after a few minutes. The mother never bothered to get up.”
Alex Didn’t Just Bully His Sister, But His Mom Too
“I was in a department store, and this couple was shopping with their three kids. The boy child, who looked to be around eight years old, picked up a hairbrush and smacked his sister, who started crying. The mom said, ‘Alex, don’t do that, that isn’t nice.’
The boy replied, ‘Forget you!’
The mom, still ignoring her crying daughter, said, ‘Come on, Alex, don’t say that,’ Alex then responded by hitting his mother with the hairbrush. The mom bent down and said, ‘Alex that isn’t nice.’
Alex responded by slapping his mother across the face and saying, ‘Forget you!’
The mom said, ‘Alex that wasn’t necessary,’ and kept on shopping. The dad just watched all of this like it wasn’t his problem and eventually just walked away.”
The Lifeguard Warned Him Again And Again, But He Just Wouldn’t Listen
“I was a lifeguard for four years in my teens. Long story short, parents expect the lifeguards to do their job for them. Either they just drop their kids off, or they don’t pay attention. We didn’t have too many terrible things, but we still saw our fair share of weird stuff.
This guy, let’s call him Guy, was probably late-20s or early-30s. Guy dove head first into the kiddy pool, which was shallow. I saw it, blew the whistle, and gave him a head shake. He acknowledged, rubbed his chest because he scraped it on the bottom, and I thought it was over with. About five minutes later, he dove head first into the kiddy section of the pool (a depth of two feet). I blew the whistle, called him over, and talked to him sternly about how I’m not reprimanding him for any other reason than that I don’t want to have to backboard him for a spinal injury. Guy agreed, said it was stupid, apologized, and walked away.
Guy walked over to this six-foot water slide we have for the little kids. This is the cutest water slide but still towers over its primary users: 2-year-olds. Along his way to the slide, Guy scooped up what I assumed was his son, and put him at the top of the slide, still standing up. This kid couldn’t have been more than a few years old and was wearing floaties. Guy pointed at me, and over the regular pool ruckus, I heard him yell, ‘See that lifeguard? He told me he wants you to jump off the side of the slide.’ He then proceeds to point at the concrete.
I saw the kid’s knees buckle as he goes to jump, and my heart sank like a rock to my stomach. I immediately shoot out of my chair and yelled, ‘HEY!’
Two things of note:
1) As a guard, you’re never to stand on your tower unless you see someone in apparent danger. This is so other guards have a clear sign that something’s going down, and to pay attention/get help.
2) I have a deep voice. A VERY deep voice. I’m quiet by nature, but when I get mad, I utilize it to my advantage.
What one of my friends later described as ‘The Voice of God’ echoed out across the pool, and the entire place fell quiet. Guy immediately put his son down on the ground and started walking towards me. I called over my manager, explained it all, and she told him he would be removed by the police after any other incidents. He apologized, then went on about his pool experience.
Two hours later, I was in the five-foot section of the pool. Guy was walking along with his friends, saw me in the chair, and went, ‘Watch this.’ I’m still surprised he didn’t say, ‘Hold my drink,’ instead. He ran and dove in deep.
In front of his son, who was behind the legs of some other bro and only peeked out after his dad submerged, Guy floated up to the surface of the pool, face down and unresponsive.
We had to evacuate the pool, stabilize and backboard him.
Guy kept entering his name into Darwin’s Lottery, and won.”
His Nephew Is The Worst Kid He’s Ever Had The Misfortune Of Knowing
“I try not to judge other parents because parenting is hard. But, my god, I want to yell at my sister-in-law and her husband sometimes. My nephew is one of the worst children I’ve ever seen, and they don’t seem to acknowledge any of it.
A few years ago, I was picking my kids up from my mother-in-law’s house, and my daughter informed me that my nephew bit her. She pulled up her shirt and showed me the Band-Aids over the bite mark that broke the skin. The kid bit her so hard through her sweater that she started bleeding. It was about this time that my sister-in-law arrived to pick up her kids and asked what was going on. My nephew started bawling his eyes out and she consoled him, telling him no one was mad at him. I corrected her and said I was quite angry. I’m not sure he ever received any punishment for that. I’m still angry over it.
Then a year or so later, he started preschool and started throwing tantrums whenever he had to go. I never personally witnessed them, but from my understanding, they were bad. Their solution was to take him out of school. My nephew is a preschool drop out. I asked if they were concerned that he was going to do the same thing when he started kindergarten, and they were certain it was just a phase. Well, kindergarten started back in September, and the tantrums have been quite regular.
Another gem comes from one time when I was babysitting this kid. He wanted to play Mario Kart on the Wii. I said sure and the two of us played along with my daughter. He played at his house, so he was quite competent at the game, although not good. He kept throwing fits, saying our game was broken because he was finishing in last place. When his dad came by to pick him up, I told him about it, and his response was that they have the computer controlled racers turned off at home so he could win. First off, I didn’t even know that was possible. Second off, you’re setting your child up for a rough life if you won’t even let him lose in Mario Kart. Keep the AI on, and he will learn the game and get better. Your kid needs to fail sometimes in order to learn and get better. I know it’s just a video game, but that is almost entirely the point. IT’S JUST A VIDEO GAME. What are you going to do when he might fail at something meaningful?
The last story comes from a family vacation we took last summer. It was all of my wife’s family, so 15 people. We went to Wisconsin Dells, and the kid was awful the entire time. If he didn’t want to do something, he made us aware of it. We went to a water park and all he wanted to do was hang out in the most basic pool. He didn’t want to do water slides or go in one that had any fun stuff to play with. I kept explaining to him that my kids want to hang out with him, but they also want to see some of the other stuff. They didn’t want to hang out in a pool that is exactly the same as the one down the road from our house. Then, if we wanted to do any other attraction, he threw a fit and his mother said they weren’t going to do it. She didn’t want to spend money on something her son wouldn’t like. She eventually had a meltdown and yelled at all of us because she was apparently ‘the villain’ of the trip. Nobody was trying to vilify her. We just suggested that maybe she should expose her kid to more things. This was a family vacation, and we wanted to do stuff as a family and she was saying no to everything because she wanted to keep one person happy.
By no means am I the perfect parent, nor are my kids perfect by any metric. But I take great comfort in knowing that I didn’t wind up with a kid like my nephew. This is the worst teenager I’ve ever been exposed to and he’s only six years old.”
Between The Child And The Father, “It Was Clear Which One Was The More Well Behaved”
“I was at a restaurant with my dad when I was 12 years old. Across from us, there was a husband and wife with their kid and, presumably, the wife’s parents. Anyway, the kid was being a normal 5-year-old at a restaurant; kind of moving around in his chair and talking a lot, nothing that would’ve been a problem for any normal person. That is, everyone except his dad. Keep in mind, the father was extremely short. Every time his son would move or talk, the dad would start screaming at the kid. It was clear which one was the more well-behaved. So the wife’s parents were looking on in horror, and the wife was having one of those ‘Not again,’ moments. Then the father took it too far. He actually started swinging his feet at the kid, trying to shut him up. This wasn’t like the guy next to you is talking too loud, so you gently tap his leg, it was full-fledged, rapid kicking. Pretty disgusting to watch, especially considering it being in public with people all around.
On a lighter note, every time the guy swung his feet, they wouldn’t reach the kid because he was so short, and at times he was slipping out of his chair trying to reach the kid. Meanwhile, my dad and I were looking on and cracking up, watching this tiny bully fail to be an abusive father. He ended up trying to come over and yell at us, but when my dad and I stood up, we were both much taller than him, so we laughed some more. He then retreated to his table and sat mumbling to himself the entire time and thankfully ignored his family.”
