Everyone who has kids wants them to grow up to be honest, right? I mean, when they do something wrong at home, we expect them to tell the truth about it and then face the consequences of their actions. But yet every day I see parents sabotaging this very principle.
Example, I work in a store where there is breakable merchandise. It's not all terribly expensive, although some of it is. The other day, a mother and her two young daughters were looking at a table of items that are on sale. I was busy ringing up another customer when all of a sudden there was a large crash. The lady I was helping smiled and asked if we had a 'crash' policy. I laughed as I told her that even as employees we occasionally have something break, so we don't enforce a 'you break it, you bought it' policy on our customers. I heard the lady scolding her children as I assumed they were trying to pick up the broken pieces. But then, nothing. They didn't come up to me to inform me of the mishap. Another lady who was walking by did however. I looked out the store window to see the mother glaring at her children as they continued through the mall along the far side of the hallway.
This is where my confusion sets in (not about who did it, but about the lesson she's not teaching her children). If they had been at home, I'm assuming there would have been some form of punishment for breaking something. If neither of the girls had admitted to it, both would presumably be held accountable. But why then, in public, is it perfectly ok to just walk away, leaving broken merchandise scattered across the floor, and not inform a store employee of the incident? Yes I understand that in some stores you may be expected to pay for the broken items. But to not step up as a parent and admit when a mistake has happened, that's not setting a very good example.
I probably tend to be overly critical of my children when we go shopping, just because I work in a retail setting and I see little things like this that irritate me constantly. But I hope that my 'harshness' makes them turn out to be respectful and honest in their actions in the future.
