Ask Yourself If Hiring A Sitter Is Right For You

We’re going back in time to 2004 when I worked at a chain department store. I was twenty-two years old at the time and floated between the departments.

One evening, I was covering the kids’ department by myself, facing and folding, fixing the tables, checking the changing rooms, etc. A woman with three small children (three, five, and seven, if I had to guess) was at a table, pulling out shirts to hold them up and then tossing them back in crumpled heaps, forming a pile. Her kids joined in, making a mess, as well. Ugh. I’d have to straighten and fix the entire table.

The woman and her kids moved along. I fixed the table, which took some time, before returning to the counter. I heard kids laughing and shrieking.

Close to the counter in the kids’ section, we had a little round sitting area facing a wall of TVs. Various kid-friendly shows played on low volume on each screen. It was a chaotic scene to behold.

The three kids were there jumping and climbing all over the short benches. No mother in sight. I did a quick search and couldn’t find her. I got my manager next. Loss Prevention was pulled in. We talked to the kids, who were super hyper, to get their mother’s name. We called her over the loudspeaker. We waited. No one came.

Loss Prevention contacted mall security. They called the kids’ mother over their loudspeaker. Ten minutes later, she came storming in, furious, a bag from another store and a huge cup from the food court in her hands.

Mother: “Why did you call me?!”

We explained the situation with her kids being left unattended in our store. She flipped out.

Mother: “That girl—” *points at me* “—is there to watch kids in the kids’ section! That’s why there’s a big wall of TVs there. It’s so mothers can go shopping stress-free!”

Loss Prevention: “That’s not how it works.”

Mother: “Do you have any idea what it’s like to go out shopping with three young kids in tow?”

At that point, her kids were tearing up tables again, running and screaming, having a blast.

Manager: “Ma’am, you and your kids need to leave.”

She threw her cup of soda on the floor, grabbed up her smallest child, and shrieked at them all that they were leaving.

Mother: “[Store] is the most horrible place ever! I will be calling corporate about your misconduct!”

It’s been twenty years. Sometimes I still wonder how those kids turned out.