While you might think that entitlement is a completely negative personality trait, it is actually not all bad. In fact, we all have a sense of entitlement and it’s actually good for us.

Healthy or normal entitlement is learned when we’re still babies. By giving us warmth and responding to our needs, our caretakers teach us what sort of treatment to expect from others. This usually teaches us boundaries and the concept of “giving and receiving” in relationships.

Other types of healthy entitlement can be transactional. For example, when you work, you expect for your employer to pay for your job. When you pay for something, you expect to be delivered a service or a product. Same applies when there is any sort of rules that people need to follow; you expect everyone to abide by them. You expect the doctors to treat you, and the laws to protect you. All of these are normal.

When we are describing someone who is entitled, we are talking about a person who has excessive entitlement. Those are the ones that expect special treatment from everyone around them.

There’s no clear answer for why people start feeling excessively entitled. One of the theories is that it is related to a person’s attachment style. Scientists propose that an anxious attachment style that manifests in clinginess and fear of rejection is associated with the feeling that you deserve better. Usually, these people have exaggerated needs and fears and demand them to be met.

This relates to a theory which claims that people who were wronged in their lives demonstrate an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Children that weren’t given enough emotional support try to meet their needs outside of their familial relations. This type of behavior shows in the patterns of entitled moms. 

Single mothers have to sacrifice a lot to give their children a good life. They often don’t receive much gratitude from people in their family, so they seek it in the world around them. Their need to feel appreciated takes priority over consideration of others. So, they go on the Facebook market and push the sellers to give them free stuff or scream at service workers, demanding the respect they crave.

Excessive entitlement can lead to criminal behavior. Studies have shown that believing that you deserve special treatment can lead men to abusing women in relationships. This can be physical or sexual violence. Those are the type of guys who think that women are indebted to them because they were treating them nicely or bought them a drink or dinner. When they don’t get it, they feel betrayed and could even take what they think they are entitled to by force.

Entitlement is also associated with infidelity. In those cases, people might think they are entitled to a certain kind of attention or even sex. If those people don’t get it from their partner, they believe it is only fair to get it somewhere else. They often don’t exhibit much remorse about their actions because they feel they were justified.

In the worst cases, entitlement can even lead to a person taking another person’s life. In a paper published in 2002, researchers analyzed how entitlement led to a student attacking his teacher. The teen perpetrator’s mother showed excessive adoration for her child, believing he was very smart and destined for something great. The scientists believe that the constant praise made him feel like he was better than others and deserved special treatment from everybody around him. Once he didn’t get it, he resorted to gratuitous violence. 

All in all, it is safe to say that taken to the extremes, entitlement can have really serious consequences. And while the mothers on this list are not physically harming anyone, their ignorance to the needs of others is definitely unpleasant. In other words, they really know how to ruin someone’s mood. We do hope these stories didn’t ruin your mood, but, instead, are going to inspire you to stand up to excessive entitlement when the situation arises.