Every parent makes mistakes. However, if someone is genuinely interested in being the best mom or dad they can be and shows up for the job day in and day out, they are already on the right track.

The ones who are merely faking it can’t fool us forever, though. To remind you that, sooner or later, the truth comes out, we have collected a list of sad and infuriating stories people shared online about the worst parents they have ever seen.

#1

A woman smacked her child multiple times for going to pick up a McDonald’s order from the counter, because it wasn’t their order. It got really awkward when it became clear that it *was* in fact their order.

Image credits: SOwED

#2

One of my best friends. Met her in middle school. She always wore the same hoodie, two pairs of jeans, one pair of shoes that were busted out and duct taped together. Never judged her for it, I just felt bad figuring her family was super poor.

When I finally went to her house I was shocked. It was huge and in a super nice neighborhood. She had her own computer in her room (back then this was a big deal). I was blown away by all of this, my family was poorish but my shoes weren’t duct taped together.

Turns out her mom was addicted to painkillers, and did nothing but sit in a chair reading, drinking wine, and chain smoking all day every day. Her dad was also an alcoholic who was the head of a huge company in our state, so he was almost always working. I found out her parents simply never noticed she only had like one outfits worth of clothes and barely one pair of shoes. She didn’t want to bother them asking for a new pair as her dad was almost always at work, and her mom was never in a good enough state to drive.

Later on in our friendship I straight up told her when I first met her I thought she was super poor and her response was “I am poor. My family has money, that doesn’t mean I have money”. To this day she’s a hard worker and doesn’t live off her parents money.

Image credits: pink_mercedes

In 2023, Dr. Konrad Piotrowski, a psychology professor at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland, published a study on parental regret. Piotrowski chose the topic because, despite parenthood being “one of the most important roles adults play,” he found very little pre-existing research on the issue of regret, which he explains by its taboo nature.

“I quite often hear from my colleagues that they don’t want to believe that parents can admit in a study that they regret having children,” said Piotrowski.

But when he put out a call to recruit mothers and fathers who regretted parenthood, he was reportedly “contacted by dozens of people within a few days.”

#3

Some years ago I used to live above a trashy single mother in a 3 apartment house.

One saturday night around 2am there was a knock on my door and the 4 year old daughter from downstairs stood in front of me crying asking if i knew where her mother was. Wet pj and dirty bare feet from searching her mom outside in the garden…

That b***h went out partying as soon as the child was asleep and left her totally alone.

She can consider herself lucky that the cops I called arrived before she did…

Image credits: Ahnenglanz

#4

Parents who try to continue their pre-kid party life with their babies in tow.

I went to college in the archetypal college town, which means a street dedicated mostly to college bars. My friends and I would do bar crawls, and would always end the night at this one pub. Anyway, on this particular occasion, it gets to be that time of night and we take our table and start talking. I’m telling a story where I happen to say the word “f**k.” The couple next to me turns to me and angrily says “hey! Watch your mouth lady, there’s a child here.” And for about two seconds, I felt horrible, until I realized they were the ones with a 3-year-old in a college bar at 11:45 at night.

Image credits: YouHadMeAtOthello

Piotrowski developed a scale for measuring their regret and applied it across two broadly representative sample groups, estimating that in developed countries, 5% to 14% of parents regret their decision to have children and would choose childlessness if they could turn back time.

His paper referenced a 2013 Gallup poll that asked US parents over 45 how many children they would have wanted if they could re-do their lives. Of those surveyed, 7% replied that they would choose to have no children.

#5

My friend saw a mother sitting on their child as punishment (He didn’t know for what). It was a young child, and she was pretty overweight as well. Strange things happen on public buses.

Image credits: anon

#6

An after school care parent of a 12 year old figured out it was me that called CPS. After threatening me in my office she proceeded to beat her daughter upside the head on their way down the stairs, declaring that no one would stop her from hitting her child.

Of course I called CPS again, as well as one of the fitness instructors downstairs to intervene.

Image credits: dotje123

#7

At a fast food place for lunch. There is a huge 300+ pound woman with her daughter who is about 6 years old.

The daughter is not fat (maybe plump) and eating straight butter. One pad of butter after another.

The mother stops her and says “Do you feel sick?”

Daughter says no. the mother says “Ok then, but once you feel sick you should stop”.

Pretty sure the kid will not grow up healthy.

Image credits: somewhat_random

Of course, many of the behaviors we see on this list are inexcusable, but according to data from the Pew Research Center, many mothers (66%) and fathers (58%) do feel that parenting is a lot or at least somewhat harder than they thought it would be.

Additionally, sizable portions of mothers (47%) and fathers (34%) say being a parent is tiring and stressful (33% vs. 24%) all or most of the time.

Still, large majorities of moms – and dads – say they find parenting to be enjoyable and rewarding (shares ranging from 79% to 83% say this is the case all or most of the time).

#8

I saw a lady leave her kids on a leash outside an ice cream shop. I mean, my parents had me on a leash when I was little because i was a little s**t who wouldn’t hold hands, that’s the right way to use a child leash. Your child is not a dog, you do not leave them tied to a bench. The point of child leashes is to keep kids safe while they can get some independence, not to be a neglectful idiot with a pet toddler.

Image credits: Donteventrytomakeme

#9

Was at a stockshow. Kid with a sheep in the ring with her dad on the other side of the fence telling her she was showing like s**t and berating her for not being able to perform how he’d like her to.

She was sobbing in tears in front of about 500 people just in the building AND the show was being live streamed all over the country. I tried to help her from across the ring but she was too distracted by her piece of s**t dad.

Image credits: anon

#10

At a concert and saw this no more than 15 minutes ago, a dad lit up a cig and handed it to his son no older than 15.

Image credits: WarsawWarHero

#11

Outside of a gas station a mother was pushing her toddler in a stroller while smoking a cigarette. The child started crying and she blew the smoke into the child’s face and said “shut up” then I started crying too.

Image credits: ggema

#12

I had a parent of a kindergartner tell me, in all seriousness, that she was told by their church prophet that my student was sent to lead the world into salvation. Her little girl was the second coming of Christ.

Gee, no pressure. “Here, teach the Christ-child to read.” Plus, she was one of the *meanest* children I ever taught.

Image credits: esk_209

#13

But I had a friend who is a preschool teacher. She had a kid that told her she hated seat belts and won’t wear it on the bus. Friend spoke to mother about it. The mother said she screams and refuses to wear it in the car, so she just gave up. The mother was speeding to get to the hospital on a rainy day, kid in the back seat jumping around. She hit water and skidded into a tree and the child was ejected. Died on impact.

Edit: Found the article after the crash. Did not hit a tree but flipped the car. Child still ejected and died of severe impact to the head. The article does not say she wasn’t wearing a seat belt, but it is known that she was not. Mother was not charged.

Image credits: Lady_Lachrymose

#14

My father once had a parent pull a gun on him during a parent teacher conference. Eventually they got him to calm down and put it away.

Image credits: bryansnameistaken

#15

I worked at a school for blind and visually impaired kids.

This woman had a daughter that was blind and mentally delayed but otherwise healthy. They were referred to our school when the daughter was in her mid teens. Her mother did so much for this girl that she considered completely helpless (she was not) that her legs atrophied and she couldn’t stand on her own.

We dealt with our share of nightmare parents of various stripes from the completely uninvolved to control freaks who knew every bureaucratic trick to pull to get what they wanted but this one, the one that cared so much for her daughter that she crippled her even further, is the one I think back to the most often. It was a constant battle to get her to back off and let her daughter learn to be an independent person.

Image credits: clavalle

#16

Met a kid at a convention. He was super cute and cosplaying as a character from the same fandom as me. Months later, his dad finds me online and tells me the kid had committed s*****e. Was super devastated cause he seemed really sweet and like a great addition to the con community. Attended the funeral and met the rest of the boy’s family. His mom’s first words when meeting me were “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Geek-enese,” and then proceeded to s**t on her late son’s interests.

Yeah… and that whole family all probably wondered why he would do such a thing. And they’re probably still scratching their heads to this day. It infuriates me.

Image credits: thr0wthisawayplskthx

#17

A little girl walking with her Dad stopped to rummage through some dandelions. The dad kept walking while she yelled at him to wait. She picked a dandelion and ran over to him to give it to him. He tossed it to the side and told her to “stop f*****g around.”

Image credits: anon

#18

My niece’s birthday party. She has a little brother and sister. Little sister gets a balloon ribbon wrapped around her neck, and her father casually glanced over, took note of the situation, then went back to looking at his phone.

I had to pull out my pocket knife to get the ribbon off the kid while she cried.

Same kids, different story. It’s Thanksgiving and something is burning. Smoke starts filling the house and the little ones start coughing. Nobody moved, so I snatched them up and took them outside.

FFS, I don’t have kids because I’m not responsible enough, but people who have kids to just be irresponsible with the lives of their children P**S ME RIGHT THE F**K OFF.

Image credits: notastepfordwife

#19

Two young kids playing within earshot of their mother. One kid says to the other, “I’m gonna k**l you!” The mother yells over, “If you say something like that again I’ll break your neck!”.

Image credits: Tool_Time_Tim

#20

I work in pharmacy, and we regularly sell packs of syringes without prescriptions to people claiming to need them for a sick pet/relative/etc. Regardless of whether that’s true or they’re using them to shoot up d***s our policy is to sell them for the sake of harm reduction, because we’d rather addicts use clean needles than reuse dirty ones and spread diseases.

We had a lady who used to always come in with her two adorable little girls to buy syringes for their “diabetic dog.” At first she was believable. She had her s**t together and her kids seemed well taken care of, but after awhile it became obvious she was actually using and her a*******n was getting bad. Her kids were obviously dirty, the older one who was maybe 6 years old went from happy and talkative to withdrawn and sad-looking, and the mom eventually stopped trying to cover up her open sores and track marks. I approached my boss with my concerns (as a mother myself I really did not feel comfortable selling to her with her kids right there), and he basically told me to either suck it up or have one of the other techs on duty sell to her, because it’s corporate policy and a $3 pack of syringes is apparently still an “important profit” for the company. The last time I saw her come in she had open sores on her face and track marks up both arms, the older kid had on a filthy stained dress and her hair was an unkempt rat’s nest, and the baby had a bad rash on her arms and face and her shoes were obviously too small and held on with duct tape.

I really wish I’d gotten her address off of her ID so I could make an anonymous call and report her to CPS so she could get some sort of help or at least have the kids placed somewhere safe where they don’t have to watch their mom shoot up.

Image credits: AnxiousFeather

#21

I was on holiday a bit back there and was in this market, a child that was about 6 or 7 years old lifted a postcard and wouldn’t put it down when the dad asked. Then out of the blue the dad loses his s**t and slaps the child so hard the child starts screaming immediately at the top of his lungs and falls to the ground holding his head. I genuinely felt ill and full of anger after watching it.

Image credits: DM_VAGABOND

#22

A mother threw her soda at her 7 year old in an ER waiting room for talking too much. This was after she s**t in the waiting room. She didn’t have diarrhea and actually s**t her pants. She stood up, said she had to poop, took off her pants, popped and squat and s**t.

Image credits: gnomey4

#23

I grew up in a lower class neighborhood next to an apartment complex for the working poor. It was basically a slum complex.

This obese kid apparently stole something that belonged to his mom so while my friends and I were outside playing she comes out in a dressing gown with her hair in curlers, she has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and she is chasing this kid with a straightened coat hanger.

The fat kid trips on the sidewalk and falls face first into the asphalt and the mom catches up to him and just starts beating the everloving s**t out of him screaming obscenities and “YOU STEAL FROM YA MAMMA THATS WHAT YOU GET! YOU GET A WHUPPIN!”

No CPS, no cops, no one in my neighborhood even gave a s**t. Just a crazy (probably drunk) mom beating the s**t out of her fat kid in the street with a coat hanger.

Growing up poor sucks.

Image credits: anon

#24

Was in a fairly nice restaurant with an adults only bar/patio in the back (on a canal). We were the only adults eating in the front part of the restaurant. Bar/patio really rolling. Thirtyish couple walks in with two girls, ages 10 and 12. They get a table for four near us. Server comes in and parents say, “Here’s $10. Watch our kids while we go to the bar.” They then leave the girls and go to the bar. Waiter pockets the $10 and continues his job. Kids start running all over the place and run outside onto the street. We get our food and are eating. Kids are out on the street in front of the restaurant playing. Father come back from the bar and can’t find the girls. We tell him they are outside. Father starts yelling at us for letting them go outside??? WTF? Then he screams for the server he tipped and the manager. Demands the manager fire the server. We are still sitting there, totally blown away. Pay our check and as we are leaving, guy is screaming at everyone…kids, server, manager, us.

Image credits: DrKoob

#25

As a grocery store employee, I see prime examples of stellar parenting often. Sadly, I see ten times more examples of s**t parenting all.the.time.

During the winter, this woman came in with four kids. SHE was bundled against the cold, but none of her kids had coats or jackets or anything of that sort. One of the little girls had on sandals over her socks. And it was the worst winter we’ve had in 20+ years. All of them were unkempt and just looked miserable. She bitched at them the entire time.

Once I saw a man drive his shopping cart into his daughter because she was “acting up.” He knocked her into the shelves pretty hard, and stuff went everywhere. He then berated her while she cleaned it up. A woman who witnessed it actually called the police on him.

This one lady was completely ignoring her toddler who was standing up in the baby seat of the cart. Her other kid was like “Mom! Mom! He’s going to fall!” and dumb a*s woman just told him to shut his mouth. Well, sure enough, kid toppled over and it would have been SO bad, but this ninja dressed in street clothes leaped over and caught the kid just before he landed on his face. The mom was like “uh-oh!” and the guy berated her for being a dumb a*s.

I have more like that, but those are the ones that stick out.

Image credits: Guinhyvar

#26

I once saw a lady shout at her 3 year old for taking too long to get out of the car, then scoop him up by the waist of his pants, slam the car door, then full on battering-ram his head into the closed door.

Image credits: GOBLIN_GHOST

#27

My wife is the principal of an expensive Chinese daycare. Like, really expensive. Every parent drives a BMW or better.

A three-year old once ran away from the group during a field trip. The teacher, an incredibly mild woman, caught the kid and asked him if he thought what he did was good or bad. She didn’t hit him, she didn’t even criticize him or make him go in time out — she just asked him if he thought it was a good thing to do.

The mother *freaked out*. Not because her child nearly went missing – she was furious that any type of discipline whatsoever was administered. My wife was on the phone with her until 2:00 AM while this woman screamed, “She has no right to tell my child what to do! Who does she think she is?!”

Fortunately, the woman became angry enough that she pulled her kid out a few days later. But that teacher is now so terrified to discipline her students that her class is out of control.

Image credits: takenorinvalid

#28

My wife was [a teacher] in a poor area near Chicago. I’ve heard a hundred horror stories, but the one I always think about is this one.

My wife’s school was having a really hard time involving their parents in their kids homework. The kids on average have poor test scores, poor intelligence, low motivation, etc… common problems today. So what they tried to do was, start an after-school program where parents would come in and help their kids with their homework. Kinda defeats the purpose of “home” work, but whatever. None of the parents showed up. Not surprising I suppose.

Here’s where it gets interesting… so they decided they were going to raffle off a ham at each afterschool homework event. Amazingly, parents started showing up. I would have to drive with my wife every once in a while to walmart to buy a ham, because the parents showed up for a 1 in 500 chance to win a ham. They wouldn’t come in for their kids, but they’d come in for a f*****g chance at ham.

Blows my mind to this day.

Image credits: jrauch77

#29

I had the parents of a Muslim student demand to me that their son be excused while my student teacher taught lessons to the class because she’s a woman and no son of theirs would be taught by a woman. I told them that’s fine, but he’s still responsible for the materials he missed (this would be every class over a 3 week period). They freaked out, called me a racist and went to the principal over my head who promptly told them that their son would be responsible for any material he missed.

Image credits: anon

#30

I’m a lifeguard so there are a lot of rules I have to follow to actually keep my job. This little boy cut his foot on a seashell and only required a bandaid so I patched him up and went on with my day. 5 minutes later his mother comes over literally dragging the kid through the sand and cursed me out for putting a bandaid on him without telling her, proceeded to call my boss and curse him out as well.

TLDR: mom’s a psycho.

Image credits: anon

#31

18 yrs old. Standing in line during the summer, big attraction, lots of people lined up in the bright sun.

Big fountain right by the line, the outer ring of which is some kind of black stone, just sucking up light and heat.

We were like 30′ back, and I happen to look over at the fountain as this woman hoists her infant (unable to stand/walk under their own strength) up onto the black ring. Barefoot. Poor kid is immediately doing this hopping kind of motion trying to pull her legs up, which makes mom shake her by the arm she’s being held up by. Mom doesn’t look at her, because mom is trying to do something on her phone. No one is reacting. Lady seems to reach someone on the phone and becomes deeply engrossed in conversation while her kid cries in pain.

I quickly walked over and put my hand on the stone and loudly (didn’t mean to, was just surprised by *how* hot) said “holy c**p, it’s so hot!”

Everyone nearby turned to look, and the woman had immediately pulled her infant away from me when I yelped. I just walked back to my parents in line. Lady kind of looked back at me for a moment with this “wtf is your problem?” face, before looking back at the fountain. She touched the stone and yanked her hand back fast, and she turned bright red before facing forward for the rest of the time we were in line.

Image credits: SkullyKitt

#32

My parents used to let me scream bloody m**der in movie theaters because “it’s a natural form of human expression”. Sorry to anyone I inconvenienced.

Image credits: anon

#33

“You never f****n’ listen to me, you f****n’ brat!”

Gosh, when you speak to your child with such respect, I can’t imagine why they’d ever start tuning you out.

Image credits: anon

#34

My least favorite thing is watching parents insult and talk badly about people in front of their kids. It ingrains in them that being nasty is okay, and that fosters terrible behavior in the future.

Image credits: POTUSKNOPE

#35

I was on a train home – a mother was sitting with her son (maybe 6-7 years old) at the front of a nearly full, silent car. He had peed his pants. For 45 minutes, we all had to witness her BERATING this kid, and doing it very loudly, saying s**t like “This is why I don’t like to take anywhere with me….you’re an embarrassment to me…everyone here knows what you did”…yadda yadda yadda. Poor kid was crying, she was yelling like this for the whole ride. I felt so bad for him. A man sitting near the back of the car spoke up, said something like “Ma’am, please stop yelling at him, you are making us all very uncomfortable.” She grabbed the kid’s arm and stormed off at the next stop.

Image credits: theobjectiveonion

#36

Some a*****e father showed up to my work and put his 2yr old son in a cart. He pushed this kid around for like 15min or so and the whole time the kid was screaming and yelling and throwing fits. Typical 2yr old s**t… until this guy finally had it and decided to twist the cart super fast. I was horrified as his son fell out of the cart and landed directly on his head.

The kid’s head made this loud crack on impact but suddenly STOPPED CRYING. A minute later the kid freaked out completely screaming with everything he had.

I had the floor manager call 911 immediately and told the man not to move his son. An offduty firefighter ran over and started first aid.

When I told everyone what I had witnessed, many of the staff working that day became teary eyed thinking this kid has to live with such an evil b*****d of a father.

When the paramedics came, I pulled one of them aside and gave my statement, letting them know that they needed to call CPS (this was in Ontario).

The father looked like he felt like s**t but he also looked more worried about getting in trouble than the fate of his son.

That night I sat down to a scotch and wept a little for that poor toddler and it f****n hit home pretty hard.

Never saw that guy again. Never heard what happened, if anything. I mean we hope that justice will prevail but all you can do is make your statement and trust that something was done.

#37

It’s not as bad as some of the stuff here, but my sister-in-law always threatens to leave a place unless her kid behaves. But she has never followed through on her threat once, so her kid knows nothing will happen.

For example, they’ll be at our house, and he won’t sit down to eat his supper. She tells him to sit and eat or they’ll leave. She will literally say this 20 times. She’ll even say “Okay son’s name, I’m getting up and we’re going.” Still no reaction. Then “Son’s name, I’m putting on my boots.” Still nothing.

Eventually she gives up. He doesn’t eat his supper and they don’t leave. This happens every time I see them. So he never behaves and she has him going to a psychiatrist to figure out why.

I’m the opposite with my kids. There are times they don’t even get warnings. We were at a park to watch fireworks a few weeks ago when my six-year-old hit me twice in the groin because she got angry at something. I packed her up in the car and went home and put her straight to bed. She missed out on the fireworks while her sister and cousins got to stay up later.

Don’t make threats if you are not going to follow through on them.

#38

Probably a father verbally berating his son (around 11-12) about asking for something. Like he would not let up about how this kid was such a selfish little b*****d (his words) this kid was trailing behind him obviously humiliated, crying while the dad just kept up telling him how awful he was. Felt bad for the kid. A few people stopped him and told him to let up and he just got all ‘don’t tell me how to talk to my kid’ and stormed out. It was at a kohls in the mall so nobody could get the information on him. It was just really sad.

#39

“Shut the f**k up or I’ll break your face”

Some obese woman to her 6-7 year old boy on a bus.

#40

I was in the supermarket once when this man walks past, with his kid trailing behind him – I guess the kid would have been about 4 or 5 years of age. He calls out to his father; “dad, we need noodles!”, to which dad replied “we’ve already got noodles, you dumb f**k”. Definitely one of those “did I seriously just hear that right?” moments.

#41

This takes place about 10 years ago. I was at a crowded nail salon getting my nails did. A rather large woman had a baby in a stroller, little girl was maybe 2 years old. The fumes had to be bothering her, as it was giving my teenage self a headache. She was fussy, crying, kept throwing her sippy cup off the edge of the tray. Her mom was completely ignoring her, huffing and puffing as she’d pick up the sippy cup and drop it back on the stroller tray.

At some point, the mom had had enough and, so that she wouldn’t mess up her new 3″ acrylics, open hand whacked the baby **on the top of her head.** I swear, the entire salon went silent. Every single eye was on them. The little girl held her breath for what seemed like an eternity, then let out a blood curdling scream.

The mom just calmly but quickly stood up, grabbed her stuff and the stroller, and walked out without paying. Everyone seemed stunned by what just happened. I don’t remember what happen after that, but it was horrifying.

#42

I was driving behind a small sedan once that was packed; driver, front passenger, and three in the back. We stopped at a red light and I was just waiting for the light to change back when an infant (~9 months by my guess) crawled up over the shoulder of the middle passenger into the rear window, looked me in the eye, and smiled.

The light changed soon after and they drove off with the baby just chilling there. I’m still ashamed I was too stunned to think to get the license plate number and report it to the police.

#43

Volunteered at a hospital and this one kid came in with a nail in his hand the day I was doing room runs for ER. The mother was putting up some decorations and dust collectors on the wall in her kitchen, when she couldn’t reach the one spot she gave the kid the nail gun, had him stand on her shoulders, and put what I assume was a Live laugh love plaque on the wall. The nail gun being heavy slipped and he caught it putting one through his hand.

The whole time in the ER the mother complete with “can I see your manager” haircut kept screaming “stop cryin, why you cryin, I said stop you cryin” in the whitest trash voice I’ve ever heard. Eventually, she decided to leave her kid with the nail in his hand still so she could go out and smoke while walking to McDonalds. Best part? She didn’t bring him back anything.

Same hospital but this time I was working with transport on mondays, and kitchen on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday having realized I really don’t like the amount of blood I see in ER. I’m in the kitchen and and some kid maybe 7-8 comes walking in and goes strait to the broiler. He trys to grab one of the pastries from under it off of the roller and the head chef pushed him with his leg away. kid stumbles onto his a*s an starts crying as we all are wondering were the little s**t came from. suddenly This wild ham planet CLOCKING IN AT 300+ LBS comes bumbling in from the dark hallway screaming “HOW DAAAAAAAAARE YOU HIT MY BABY!?!?!???? HOOOOOOOOW DAAARRREEEE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!!!!!!!!?”

Cheff get’s in her face and says who does she think she is? Her d*****s kid almost got severely burned which would have ruined the pastry line.
(a running joke about the chef is that he can’t be fired, he is a five-star chef who early retired a multi millionaire restaurant owner when he was in his mid 40’s and now works dirt cheap often volunteering in what we liked to say was him trying to get into heaven. He has cursed out several delivery people, and even the manager of food services but the fear of losing him has resulted in him not even being written up.)

Hamplanet then screams and rages at the chef and anyone else near her occasionally run wobeling at her. this went on until someone grabbed security. Security comes in and after detaining her finds out that the hamplanet came down the staff steps after seeing us takeup food (the hospital makes a few extra bucks by selling some food and stuff for catering). She then wobbled down with her kid, saw the pastries and decided she was entitled to get one for free. She sent her kid to go grab her one. If he was succesfull his hand would have been 2 inches from a broiler and the slightest slip on his part would mean his hand touches a 600 degree heating element.

The hospital ended up pressing charges because during her rampage she threw a handful of garbage from the bin across the cooking area which included a vat containing 75lbs of ground beef that had to be trashed…

#44

This one stupid guy, during Christmas season, was in the store with his 5 year old and they were standing next to the ornament tree (like a metal skeleton in a shape of a Christmas tree, but empty on the inside). His kid crawled under the tree and somehow ended up INSIDE the tree.

Now this tree has a green bin at the bottom because sometimes ornaments will drop if tugged too hard or mishandled, most of which are made of glass, but when it does it’ll fall into this bin to avoid getting glass shards everywhere. We just have to sweep it up daily.

So this kid is like playing in this green bin with glass shards, I only noticed because the kid picked up one of our FULLY GLASS ornaments and dropped it, breaking it immediately. I rushed over to him and asked if the kid was okay. The dad, looking at his phone the whole time, glanced up towards me and then looked at his kid and mumbled, “Don’t touch anything.” to his kid while I got his kid out and sternly said “This is DANGEROUS. Never crawl under there, okay?” and then they walked away without so much of an apology, and while his dad was still looking at his f*****g phone. I never wanted to kick someone in the face so badly.

#45

Whenever anyone yells at their children and makes them cry it makes me feel very awkward. Like, i get that they might be little s***s, but publicly humiliating them by yelling at them around a bunch of strangers makes things worse and traumatises them.

If anything I remember as a kid if i pissed my parents off in public they would say “we’ll deal with this when we get home” which was way more scary than getting yelled at.

#46

I was riding the bus a few weeks ago and the woman sitting beside me turned to her daughter and started screaming at her for looking at the other passengers because “people will stab you for looking at them in public”.

#47

When my friends and I were about 14 we’d hang out at a specific park. Some kid (“Crazy Phil”, I think) would get dropped off there if we were there, every day we were there and possibly even days we weren’t, with matches, or lighters, a knife IIRC, sometimes wine coolers.

He was younger than us. It was his mother or grandparents who’d drop him off.

#48

Was at a restaurant and there was a little boy trying to eat his Mac and cheese off of the plate that they served it to him in with a fork.

Nope the mom took his fork away and spread the Mac n cheese ON THE CLOTH TABLECLOTH and made him eat with his hands.

#49

A mom at the doctors office ignoring her little boy who was acting out for her attention. The less she paid to him the louder he got. He was too old for this to be new behavior and it’s likely that he only gets attention when he’s extremely misbehaving.

I felt bad for both of them tbh. The little boy for obvious reasons and for the mom because she just couldn’t keep up. Like eventually the time comes where certain behaviors are reinforced to the point where it’s very hard to unwind. She’d clearly just given up because she was just empty.

#50

Watched a father chase around his 7th grade daughter yelling “Ghetto booty, ghetto booty, ghetto booty!” while acting like he was going to grab her a*s. This was IN a middle school.

#51

I watched a lady snatch a little boy out of the backseat of a truck, and smack him hard enough for him to step forward. I started counting after the first several smacks. 13, and I didn’t count them all.

He was under 3.

#52

A two year old boy ran across the street to the side where his parents were tending to stuff in their car. No idea why he was across from them in the first place but the oncoming truck driver was thankfully vigilant and stopped.

The dad then proceeded to yell and hit the boy. When I yelled at the dad to stop, the boy saw his chance and ran. He was quickly caught. I’m sure the only thing he learned that day was to fear his father.

#53

I was a computer teacher at an elementary school and I had this one kid who spent so much time in my class (I talked with the principal, his teacher, and the counselor about him, all knew he had a not so happy home life, but nothing CPS would do something about). Little guy was about 8 and just loved talking, and so long as I could see what he was doing on the computer I didn’t care.

Anyways, a few weeks later I see him and his dad and his dads girlfriend at Wal-Mart and I start talking to him and he just gets excited and we talk about his interests and his dad (who according to the teacher is a major d**k) just tells the kid he cant keep bothering me (the line for the cashier was long he didn’t have anywhere to be)

and then said “You can ignore him if you want, he gets like this and wont shut up about that d**n show”

And I was just like “No, its fine, we talk at school I like how excited he is about coding and tv shows”

His dad could’t believe it and just was shocked.

I was so pissed, this kid spends his whole day in his room doing nothing and not talking to his family because they cant be bothered to take an interest in his interests.

#54

A mother letting her toddler hang from various poles in a train. This was in an old as f**k train in Rome which has windows you could open wide enough that even an adult could fall out if they tried hard enough. I said something when the kid began trying to dangle from the emergency train brake.

#55

Keith’s mom. Keith was a 10th grader and I was new to teaching. He was such a pain in the neck. Didn’t do any work. Mouthed off. Got other students distracted. I ended up calling his mom about half a dozen times, asking her to come in and meet with me to talk about the situation. She never returned my calls.

And then one day, out of the blue, she showed up to talk to me. She didn’t look happy to be there but hey, at least she came, right? I thanked her for being there and began to talk about how Keith was doing. She looked around the room while I spoke, and her body language made it very clear she didn’t want to be there. After a few minutes, she interrupted me, looking straight at me for the first time. “Look,” she said. “I gave up on that kid a long time ago. You want to try to do something with him, you go ahead. I wish you luck.” And then she got up and left.

I felt sick. This was her son. He was maybe 15, still a KID, for crying out loud.

In the days that followed, I thought about Keith a lot. In class, I did my best to see him through fresh eyes. I made a point of talking to him more. And at some point, I realized that for all the headaches he caused, I actually liked having him in class. Turns out he was a funny guy. He had a big heart. After a while he even started doing some work. Not a lot, but some.

One day, another kid in class was being really smug and obnoxious. Without warning, Keith punched the kid in the face. He sighed and looked at me. “I’m really sorry. Had to be done. I’ll escort myself down to the office.” I guess that was the last straw for the school, because Keith was sent to an alternative school in the district. A good one, thankfully.

I saw Keith one more time, about a year later. He came to my class, grinning, a report card in hand. All A’s. “I decided it was time to get my $#*! together,” he said, simply.

I never saw him again, but I heard he continued to do well. And I’m glad that though others gave up on him, he decided not to give up on himself.

#56

My first teaching job, I had a fifth grader who was THE WOOOOORST (Jean-Ralphio voice). He would literally just stand up in the middle of class, laugh like a madman, and run out of my classroom. He also did a few things in the bathroom that no sane child would ever do, mostly involving feces.

I was new, so I asked around to see if this kid had a history of bad behavior. All of his previous teachers said he was actually one of the better-behaved kids, and he was pretty smart. No previous history of this kind of attitude or behavior whatsoever. They were baffled.

We (and by “we” I mean “all the fifth grade teachers and the principal”) met with his parents 4 times in two months, trying to determine the cause of all of this. In the first three meetings, his parents were cooperative, but seemed a little slow. They couldn’t think of any reason why little Jamal (we’ll call him Jamal) would act in such a way.

In the fourth meeting, I said “listen, kids don’t just flip a switch like this. Jamal has ZERO history of disciplinary problems until this year. Can you think of ANYTHING that happened between 4th and 5th grade that might affect his psychological makeup?”

They said “Oh! Jamal’s uncle was found shot dead in our home this summer. Jamal was the one who discovered his body.”

Something that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!!!

#57

I was teaching a sweet 13 year old girl, who obviously couldn’t see the board very well and needed glasses as she was falling behind in class. I called her mother (this is in south London so imagine a jade goody voice) her mum told me to f**k off and that “I didn’t need f*****g glasses, my mother didn’t need f*****g glasses so she doesn’t need any f*****g glasses” and hung up.

In that situation you just feel for the girl.

#58

I just got back from an internship at a German “Gymnasium” (high school directed towards kids who would normally go to college after). This school was also a boarding school and one of the kids is a complete t**t waffle. He steals and drinks and bullies everyone else then plays dumb as if he didn’t know what was up. His mother is probably the biggest problem parent I had to deal with at the school, but I was an intern so the real teachers had to deal with way worse I believe.

His mother ignores everything bad we told her about her kid. He is a saint who can do no wrong to her, and he’s too fragile to ride the train home so every other week and on holidays she drives across Germany to pick him up. He got caught stealing from 3 other kids that lived next door to him, but his mom always gives some b******t excuse like “Oh, he’s under so much pressure, you all just blame him for everything!” Meanwhile Dickless is growing up to have no future because he refuses to participate in school and can’t stop acting out.

There is probably a problem here that needs treatment but I am a college student and those teachers are way overworked as it is.

#59

I work with kids doing behavioral therapy and teaching social skills. I did it in-home for 4 years and when I moved in June I started working at a clinic that more closely mimics a school. Both settings are beneficial for the kids, but lemme *tell you* about crazy parents.

The hyper-religious family that home-schooled all 5 of their kids. The youngest was 12 years younger than the second-youngest because the parents decided in their mid-forties that they wanted another kid. The odds of a special-needs child at that age are pretty d**n high compared to 35 and younger, but they insisted that they wanted whatever “God had in store for them” and now play martyr about everything related to their daughter. Oh, and they hate black people. Like, dad ranted about how “d**n stupid” black people are, and their living room is filled with professionally framed Confederate Army paintings.

The mom who taught her son to say “No daddy’s house” even though he *loves* his dad. He understood “yes” and “no” perfectly before this. After she did this we had to re-teach it by taking things away when he said no, he didn’t want it. He was so confused and cried so much. His mom is literally the devil.

The mom who brings her kids to the clinic in their pajamas and is in pajamas 50% of the time herself. She asks for parenting advice and then interrupts me *every* time to tell me why that won’t work for her son. “He’ll cry.” She insists that she can’t keep him out of locked closets, can’t keep him off of the kitchen counters, can’t keep him from climbing baby gates. It’s called *not leaving your kid alone* until you’ve taught him what is and isn’t allowed. He’s 3, but developmentally probably 18 months. She lets him have Kit Kats for breakfast and leave the house barefoot because she “doesn’t want that battle” today. Then she’s always late for pick up and talks at me about herself *forever* no matter how many times I say goodbye, but she talks at me through her son by referring to herself in third person: “It’s time to get in the car because Mommy has to go to WalMart to pick up our medicine. Our medicine has gone up twelve bucks since last time! And we have to get the lotion for you, that stuff better work since it costs $10 for a bottle. Mommy really hopes you don’t start kicking me like last time.” And it just goes on forever, taking up my lunch break *every single time.* I can’t walk away because my boss would frown upon that.

Another family that is burned into my memory…these parents *loved* me, unfortunately, but thankfully mom didn’t love my boss so they quit using her company after a few months. When her company merged with another provider that this family was using by then, I ended up with co-workers who worked with their kids–and access to their continued horror stories. Mom has an Excel spreadsheet for babysitters: what did they eat, how much, what time, when did they go to the bathroom, poop or pee, how much, did you brush teeth, every task broken down into minute detail. Their kids get into the trash *when unsupervised*, and one therapist was told that she was a “bio-hazard” for putting her tampon (wrapped up) in their bathroom trashcan. She was told to bring a Ziploc and to take her “hygiene products” with her when she left. I could go on forever. *Insane.*.

#60

Jay’s mom. This story is a colleague’s.

The science teacher said, “for this unit, I’ll be taking you all to Mars!”

Jay’s mom comes in – in person – yelling about how ain’t her kid goin’ to no Mars. She ain’t give permission for dat.

True story.

#61

Oh man, I have a couple.

I worked at a chain child-care center. In the first few weeks I was there, there was a notice on my classroom door and one we had to send home to every family because a child in the center had Scarlet Fever. What is this the middle ages? Scarlet Fever essentially is strep throat that goes untreated. Mom refused to take the kid to a doctor, so the entire center was exposed.

A mother that was arrested for showing up at the center and tried to pick up her kid despite her having a restraining and no-contact order to see her kid. That was fun explaining to a classroom of 4-year-old who witnessed that…

Consoling a child who was crying because she was sad about something – I don’t remember what, but she was 3 so it was probably important to her. I went over to console her and all she could tell me was not to tell her mom she was crying because “when I cry, mommy hits me for crying” My first mandatory reporting. As a guy, it was REALLY hard not to after the parents for that one.

Here’s a thing about boys – especially when they are in the 3-5 age range: they like to wrestle. No, not fight, gang up on, beat each other up, wrestle. I had rules: Had to be outside, on the grass, not biting, kicking or punching and if one person cries it’s over. It worked brilliantly. The kids learned boundaries when before they had none. They are GOING to wrestle, so instead of outlawing it altogether which was untenable – I put safety rule sin place and they were ALWAYS monitored. Helicopter my-son-is-an-angel-despite-the-fact-that-i-know-he’s-a-little-a*****e mom sees this going on one day and tells the director I let her son get ganged up on and beat up. Her son was like 6 in class full of 3-4 year olds. and HE was getting ganged up on? No lady, you’re a moron.

#62

I have a friend who is a great guy but super indecisive and procrastinates everything. He rarely does anything for himself because he gets all mentally paralyzed assuming he’s going to do it wrong. Very passive guy, always asking me for help with everything and “how do I do this, how do I do that” for anything he has to do.

Met his mom. Incredibly overbearing woman who constantly berates him. She does everything for him because, in her words, “he would just do it wrong anyway”. She belittles everything he does and every conversation involves heaps of criticism and fault-finding.

After meeting her, I had much more empathy for my friend. Of course he assumes he’s going to screw everything up. Of course he doesn’t do anything for himself. I started making sure to point out the things he does well and heap on the positive affirmation, even for little things that feel almost patronizing (ever try telling an adult that he did a great job buying his own clothes? Feels almost belittling. But he’s never heard that from anyone before because his mom would never say it to him and nobody else in his life realized he needed to hear it). Helped him gain some confidence.

He’s doing a bit better now. He moved out of his mom’s place and is learning he’s actually a pretty decent guy, not an incompetent pile of garbage. Sometimes he can even see how toxic his mom is. It’s a process.

#63

My boyfriend is very independent and self reliant and won’t accept any help from anyone, including me. It took him 3 months to finally let me buy our dinner, because he never wanted me to pay for his food. During Christmas, I met his family. They are (for lack of better words) trailer park trash, live off the government in any way they can, front teeth rotting and some missing, haven’t showered in who knows how long, money grubbers, etc. My boyfriend explained he learned how to be an adult when he was very young to get away from them and he never wants to live his life like they do.

#64

One of my students hardly ever wanted to do his work, he’d be afraid of “making a mistake” or failing. He would say things like, ” well I’m not smart”, “well I’m not good at writing my letters”, or “I don’t know how to do that yet”

Met his mom and she would always have something negative to say about him instead of encouraging words.

Made a lot of sense.

#65

My ex was controlling, manipulative, and emotionally a*****e. I met her parents, her mom was the exact same way and her dad was an absolute pushover. She grew up having no idea how to love someone in a healthy way.

#66

Was taking care of a patient that had attempted s*****e; the patient was anxious and depressed but mostly cooperative. Then I met patient’s mother. Holeeeee f**k. Had I been raised by that person, I might have tried to k**l myself, too. Seriously, patient is in the ICU after a s*****e attempt and this woman was trying to make everything out about how bad this was for *HER*. I eventually got the patient alone and asked if patient wanted mom to leave—and then I lied my a*s off about our visiting policy and kicked that woman out for the night. We had a much better night after that.

#67

A mother ordering at Chipotle and letting her 5 year old boy lick the countertop up and down while her burrito was being prepared.

#68

This isn’t particularly “public”, but sort of. My next door neighbors are a couple who have four kids and one foster child. The foster child is 12 but severely autistic. Because of this, he is constantly coming to our door and our other neighbors doors, ringing the bell, and asking if he can come inside, usually to see our pets or ask to play with toys. He does this all throughout the day, up to ten times a day. Not only is it annoying to us and the other neighbors, but it’s dangerous! He could so easily knock on the wrong door one day and be abducted.

The dad is at work all day, but the mom claims that she’s always home and “always watching” the kids. She’s home, yes, but she spends all day in bed and is *never* watching any of the kids. It’s really sad.

#69

When I worked at a grocery store, there was a regular who would come in with her 3 kids. Usually the older kids weren’t bad and rarely caused a scene but the youngest (about 3-4 years old) was THE worst. Every single time she would come up to checkout the youngest would start asking for candy. She would tell him no and that he needed to eat real food first before candy was allowed. Of course, he would start wailing so loudly that the whole store could hear and she would ignore him. This would go on for about 2-3 minutes and then he would beg her for candy again. She would say no just like she did before but on this particular trip he actually started throwing things out of the cart. She smacked him on the hand and told him to stop behaving that way and then he actually hit her back. She yelled at him and told him that she would spank him if he didn’t calm down and he cried some more for a few minutes. Once I was done ringing her up, I told her the total and guess what happened?

She bought the f*****g candy bar and gave it to him.

#70

Leaving children unattended in a skatepark, exacerbated more so when they aren’t correctly using the facility (running around with no board, gear, etc), don’t have the skill (the old classic is a lil dude riding a non-bmx bike up a ramp but he doesn’t know how to turn around so ends up nutting himself ), or can’t comprehend the norms of using the space (ignoring queuing, dropping in on people, getting in the way, hogging an area, the list goes on). The rate at which this happens, the risk of serious bodily injury, and the near universal incredulousness from the parent when confronted is baffling.

#71

Was at GameStop a while back when there was a mother and her kid(looked like he had to be about 7-8) he was definitely single digits. He was b******g and moaning about wanting a game. The game you ask? GTA 5. A game that is absolutely not suitable for a little kid not even just the game itself but the online people that play the game. Not saying the adults that play it are bad but they are adults, like myself who swear on a daily basis and I’m not really going to censor myself when I’m playing a rated M game. He was crying and complaining about wanting this game and of course the mom got it for him. Now not that it doesn’t show you the rating of a game but I felt like telling the mom that this game really isn’t appropriate for someone his age, in case she wasn’t aware of what GTA is. But I didn’t. Felt like it would have just fallen on deaf ears.

#72

At my work we give out flowers to good kids, the kids that don’t get a flower have to be displaying some pretty bad behaviour…. one little girl who comes in a lot didn’t get a flower on one occasion =because she was being a right little s**t, little s**t threw tantrum, mum tried to demand I give her a flower, I said no, flowers are for behaving. Mum bought her flower. Like lady, don’t reward the bad behavior is the simplest rule of anything!!!!

#73

My roommate is a preschool teacher. She has a student in her class who is very, very rambunctious, and she has a pretty good line of communication with the boy’s mother, as she is not in denial about her son’s behavioral issues. She also has a girl in her class who is spoiled rotten, used to getting everything she wants immediately.

One afternoon, my roommate was waiting on parents to pick up the kids, and she was chatting with the mother of Rambunctious Boy. All of the sudden, the mother of Spoiled Girl bursts into the room. She starts yelling… at Rambunctious Boy. Apparently he had pushed Spoiled Girl on the playground the day before. Spoiled Girl didn’t tell my roommate or the other teacher, just her mom, and she also told her mom that Rambunctious Boy didn’t get punished (since she didn’t say anything to the teachers). Mom decides to take this out not on the teachers, but on this 4-year-old boy. She screams at him not to touch her daughter and that there would be consequences and blah blah. Obviously, Rambunctious Boy starts crying, my roommate and the other mother are just in shock, and Spoiled Girl and her mom turn and leave in a huff.

Congratulations, lady. You just bullied a four-year-old into crying. I really hope you feel good about yourself.

#74

Currently doing illegal private tutoring in Korea as an ESL teacher. The “worst” parent I’ve dealt with so far are the family that I currently work with. While the mother and father are easily one of the sweetest and nicest people I’ve met, they’re extremely wealthy, and tend to spoil the s**t out of their two elementary kids.

They have a really fat little five year old boy that is the most spoiled s**t in the universe. This chubba hubs throws tantrums every day during lessons, hits and screams at his parents and grandparents, cries over everything, and eats a s**t ton of food everyday. And his parents just smile and laugh over all of it. They’ve never disciplined him, they’ve never told him no. This s**t gets a new toy every week, on demand. This little f****r can’t stand doing anything he doesn’t want or he’ll run to his parents crying.

#75

Went to sister in law’s parents’ house for a “dinner party” before they got married. Sister in law is…a bit tough to please to say the least. Get to the house and instantly realize she grew up filthy rich. Everything in the house was way too nice, smooth jazz playing lightly in the background, entire night has been scheduled out (mingling and appetizers in the den, dinner with the special crystal glassware, games and coffee in the living room, etc)

At dinner I grab the cocktail sauce and put a spoonful onto one of the many unnecessary plates to compliment the pre portioned 2 shrimp I was given on a stupid bed of lettuce. Instantly her mother stands up, grabs my plate forcefully, stomps off to the kitchen and washes my plate off. She comes back and says “wrong plate”. I feel very bad for my brother.

#76

An otherwise charming friend of mine was oddly confrontational, seemingly for no reason.

I met her father for the first time when he was driving us somewhere. From the back seat I watched him subtly, passive aggressively put her down, all the time (he was a lawyer, he did this extremely skillfully). Normally her sudden verbal claps at people seemed out of place, but with him it appeared like an effective defence against his particular form of insulting.

Being confrontational was her defence mechanism whenever she felt insecure.

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