MysterionMuffles Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 I'm reposting this from my original thread about a child abuse intervention at work. I think this second instance deserves its own thread because the original one got derailed. A mother and preteen daughter were in the store, and from the corner of my eye, I can already sense she was nagging her daughter and disallowing her from buying anything. In fact, the mother was buying a bunch of shit JUST FOR HERSELF! When they finally got to my cash register, the mother was being really rude to her daughter, bopping her on the head for...some reason I can't remember. It didn't look painful, but it did look humiliating. I was just busy ringing her items through. At some point, the daughter picked up a lanyard and started looking at it, and her mom says "oh no, we're not buying that. We don't have anymore time or money to buy things for you." (Even though they'd been in the store for 20 minutes) And at that point I had enough of her so I told the mother, "it's alright, she's just taking a look. Doesn't mean she has to buy it." Me saying that, I suppose, allowed the mother to allow the daughter to take a look at a shirt that was hung up on the high wall. I walked over to the wall with the daughter, noticing that the mother stayed at the cash counter to wait for her. When I took down the shirt off the rack, I took the opportunity to talk to the daughter. I said, "I'm really sorry that your mother treats you this way. I can't believe she won't let you get anything for yourself. How old are you? 12? Yeah you got 6 more years before you can move out and live on your own." Then I felt that I had to choke on my sympathy speech because the mother crept up behind us to tell her daughter that they had to get going, and even apologized for her daughter for wasting my time--when it's my goddamn JOB to show items to customers even for future reference. I don't know why...but this instance irritated me more than the one I originally posted about. This mother was so overbearing and rude to her daughter in almost every section of the store. My store's main demographic is youngsters from 13-30 and this mother was completely ignoring her daughter's desires all for her own. It made me uncomfortable with upselling, because when I did, the mother got yet another thing for herself instead of her daughter. Total BS! 4
EricBaker.Linux Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 Yeah, that is BS. It's as if the mother doesn't think the daughter should have any desires of her own... as if instead she should just walk with her mother and be a silent vegetable all day while mom gets to have fun shopping!!! not cool. I think... if you can't afford to buy stuff for your kids, at least take interest in their interests and maybe give them an allowance or something so they can buy their own stuff. I remember my Dad would give me like just 5 dollars a week, to me it was great, but to the parent, it's not much to spare. 1
AynRand Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 I thank for you empathizing with the daughter, and I'm sure that she is glad that someone with an objective look at what happened was able to understand what she was going through. I think you are fully justified at feeling irritated at the mother who was neglecting her child. I must say that from reading similar instances on FDR it seems like the parents of these children often scream at people who try to intervene on the child's behalf. Maybe if the mother had heard what you had said their might have been a bigger conflict. 1
MysterionMuffles Posted February 16, 2015 Author Posted February 16, 2015 Thanks for the replies guys. I think empathizing with the child is much more important than shaming and confronting the parent in these situations. It might give the impression to the child that we are indeed in a dog eat dog world. Sure to some degree they'll think "yes someone's standing up for me," but it's also causing more unease and conflict. Whereas being empathized with is more in the lines of "I just had conflict with my parent(s), but now that it's done, someone knows how I feel about it and was there for me." I could be wrong, but I think child abuse interventions where the focus is on interacting with the parent, most likely in a confrontational manner, might be more detremental than helpful. Especially if you waver in your confidence and get eaten up by the parent's aggression.
Josh -Lel- Posted February 16, 2015 Posted February 16, 2015 To me, that was heroic. Good job. I think just hearing ONE sane person will make that girl's life a lot more bearable.
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