I love driving to work. Not the traffic, or the stress.
But the chance to listen to the radio for 40 whole minutes. I turn it up loud and no one complains! Blisssss.
This morning I was sucked into a story about parents who let their children eat food at the supermarket that hasn’t been paid for yet. There were so many different opinions.
t’s stealing, it’s theft, it’s teaching children bad morals…
It’s fine, it helps, you don’t understand if you don’t have children… The thing is, I can see the point of the people who say it’s not good morals. Children see everything black and white, they see us take something before we pay, are we stealing? Or is there an exception to the rule?
Now I don’t know about you, but shopping with a 1 year old is a nightmare. She just wants to move, to get out, to wriggle. She screams and cries. Urgh, most of the time I turn to online shopping. Gods gift to mothers. But when we have to go to the supermarket and she kicks off, we give her a bit of a breadstick, a bit of baguette – we pay for it at the end, so I don’t really see the problem.
I’m not stealing it. I don’t hide the wrapper on a shelf and skulk away. I also don’t help myself to a sandwich, a drink and a bun on the way round. It’s not a picnic for me, it’s a method of survival for us. Just to point out though, if I was offered a free sandwich and bun on the way round I’d be a convert to that supermarket for life.
I don’t suppose Asda mind Holly munching her way around. It’s more custom for them!
Plus I don’t think I can win. If I have a screaming child people stare judgmentally, if I feed my child food people stare judgmentally. So stop staring and get on with your own shopping. My child munches on a bit of bread. That’s right STOLEN bread!
What are you supposed to do?
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*cough* this is were my law degree comes in handy. As you are going to pay for the food then is not often seen as stealing as you will pay for it before you leave the store. If you put the empty pack back or you eat from a weighed item ie loose grapes then that is theft.
Theft comprises of 5 different elements and all 5 of those have to be covered in order to be theft. One of them is dishonsity and if pay for th item before leaving and without being prompted then its not dishonest.
That’s it in its simplest form. Most of us do it
Before I had my son I hated seeing kids munching their way round the supermarket, especially if it was something like grapes that needed to be weighed. Now I have him, and I can see the issues…I don’t let him have food out of the trolley, but when we’re shopping at around his usual snacktime and he knows I’ve got a carton of raisins or a snack bar in my bag from home, it’s really hard not to give in. I tend to wait til the checkout because I don’t want to be accused of not paying for something when I’ve bought it from home. Thankfully he’s used to waiting and usually I can distract him with ‘look at that’, but he’s 21 months so understands a lot more.
I have a bigger bugbear though, and that’s kids who are allowed to sit or stand in the trolleys (not in the seats).