Being a parent is not easy, especially parents of toddlers who are actively exploring the world – and they have so much strength and energy for this cognitive process that you are amazed – when do they even get tired? And parents, by the way, are also living humans, with their own flaws and hobbies, who, for instance, also want to go to the pub one day.

The story we are going to tell you today happened recently in Australia, and the user u/cruiserman_80, who shared the photo they took, in fact sparked a heated discussion about parenthood, children and the restaurant business. A good example in which one photo is more eloquent than many words. So let’s see for ourselves.

This story happened in an Australian pub where a couple with a toddler visited

Image credits: cruiserman_80

The kid behaved really badly, flinging food everywhere, and the parents didn’t even try to stop them

The author of the original post (OP) shared a photo taken in an Australian pub, just after the departure of some other customers, a couple with a toddler. According to the author’s own words, the whole time that the family was in the pub, the kid behaved in far from the best way, scattering food everywhere, and the parents did not even think to stop them.

And then the couple left without even thinking to clean up after their offspring, and the original poster questioned how ethical it was for parents to firstly let their child behave like that, and secondly, leave it to the pub staff to clean this whole pigsty. The result was 4.4K upvotes and over 1.1K different comments, with netizens divided, as is often the case.

Then the family left, leaving their table as a complete pigsty and not cleaning up after their kid – and quite naturally took heat from folks online

On the one hand, commenters quite reasonably believe that the child’s behavior could not only distract other pubgoers, but also created an additional problem for the workers in the form of unplanned cleaning around the table. “It’s just so disrespectful and I would never expect someone else to clean up after us,” one commenter wrote.

The method of raising a kid was also criticized, although, to be honest, folks in the comments literally did not even see either the toddler or their parents and had to judge everything only by the picture and the author’s description of events. In any case, some commenters were extremely categorical. “Grub parents raise grub children,” one of them angrily voiced their opinion.

Probably the parents left some extra money as a cleaning tip for the staff, our expert believes

On the other hand, it is possible that the parents paid the pub staff extra to clean up after their child. “Over the years I’ve been at this place, I’ve seen all sorts of things and, of course, children flinging food are no exception,” says Vlad Ostrometsky, the manager of UNIT Cafe in Odessa, Ukraine, who was asked by Bored Panda for a comment. “Parents sometimes clean up after their kids if they can’t stop them, but often they just add some extra money to the tip to compensate our cleaning staff.”

“It seems to me that this option looks even more preferable, because you actually still have to clean up around the table after the visitors, and additional money is always good. Although, the perfect option would probably be for the kids to behave well. However, this is probably unattainable…” Vlad says a tad bit ironically.

Image credits: Mark Hillary (not the actual photo)

However, netizens just question contemporary methods of parenting and slam these kinds of parents heavily

Be that as it may, commenters presume that if the parents of this naughty child simply left without leaving an extra tip for cleaning, then unless they’re big spenders, the pub management should probably have them banned. “Where is the self-respect these days? And common sense?” one of the folks in the comments asks philosophically.

Well, there are various tales about restaurant customers. For example, like this one from our earlier post, about a client who declared their allergy to seafood on the doorstep, then ordered a large portion of seafood pasta… ending up just confessing they don’t like crab. Yes, pubs and cafes are a truly endless source of weird and amusing stories, so feel free to add your own in the comments if you’ve ever witnessed something bizarre too. And, of course, please write what do you think of these parents’ behavior as well.

Image credits: David Lee (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Keira Burton (not the actual photo)

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