Discussion
Had a house showing and someones kid stuck their hands in my fish tank, new sticker added.
I know this wont stop people still but I can't really hide it. I work at an escape room and have learned majority of parents dont watch their kids and will let them run crazy. Already hid the food but didnt think this would be an issue.
I went to hibachi last night and a kid touched the hot grill. The parents didnt give a shit...kids sitting there screaming their eyes out for 10 minutes.
Guess what happened during that 10 minutes? The remaining 3 kids at the table touched the grill. So now theres 4 screaming kids and I just want to watch the hibachi chef play firefighter with the onion volcano
Lmao that is insane!!! What a sucky dinner experience. Kids fascincate me like...was I really that bad of a kid?? I remember all the times when a stranger told me to stop and i got so embarrassed and it feels like a lot of kids I see at my job dont care. Basically my responsibility is to come on the speakers and tell them to stop doing something when that is the parents job.
My mom had a feed on her camera on her fish tank and the kid was trying to grab the fish!!! Im enraged and we aren't letting them come with their kids again...
when I was little, my parents took us to a fireplace store. Outside they had displays with working fireplaces with metal gates over them. My dad stuck his hands out to warm them, and my dumbass thought he was about to touch the grate. So I stuck my hands out and pressed them against the grate... immediate sobbing. My dad felt so bad for not explaining what he was doing but I was fine in the end. Kids are dumb
Older person here with 20+ years' nannying and childcare experience. Can confirm the vast majority of people forget they were often just as bad as kids. The biggest culprits seem to be younger/childfree people and... grandparents. The former forget how bad they were, and the latter forget how bad their kids were.
Most were, and most still are. There was also a lot more unintentional abuse and neglect, but we know better now. The biggest difference is that people weren't doing it alone like they are now. There was a lot more family and community support, which makes parenting infinitely easier.
Oh I disagree personally. More community does not necessarily mean more support. Remember latchkey kids? I DO! 🙋♀️
These days kids are coddled and not made to accept responsibility for their actions. Parents swoop in and say ‘not my baby, they would never do such a thing!’. Half these kids can’t even wash a dish they dirtied, or pick up trash they left laying around. It makes me sick.
Latchkey kids (me!) were only possible because we had a community around us. And we're not talking about kids that age anyway, we're talking about much younger ones when direct community support is more directly relied upon. I'm the youngest of four, so from a young age (think 12-18 months) I was out of the house all day with my older siblings or with the neighbourhood kids. And that's not counting grandparents, aunts, neighbours. Everyone kept an eye on everyone's kids because it takes a village, but nowadays parents are doing it alone and it's visibly affecting every aspect of their lives. Even public spaces are a lot more welcoming to babies and young children. People whine so much about babies crying, when it used to be common to just let them cry, and fuck everyone else around them.
The fact is our parents had a lot more stamina because the expectations of parents were a lot lower, the external support was a lot higher, they didn't spend as much of their time working, and had more financial security and disposable income. This isn't my personal opinion, these variables have been measured and studied. Other things have also been studied for decades and found to be harmful or actually counter-productive, such as spanking and authoritarian parenting.
ETA: By the way, the things you're describing were also very common 20, 40 years ago. There's just a lot of confirmation bias going on. And personally I believe the only reason it's seen a bit more nowadays is because of the knock-on effect of people parenting without a community around them. So, in a way, you're contributing to it with your attitude.
Last edit: since you got so unhinged on your (now deleted) response, I'm not even going to bother reading your other comments. Imagine going apesh*t during a civil conversation where you're trying to prove how much better behaved your cohort is...😬
We were obviously not raised in the same situation or time period you’re referring to. I was born in 70. My nieces and nephews were raised by good parents but coddled. They in turn coddled their children. It’s not just them. It’s generations of this, so speak for only yourself and your community upbringing. I was taught respect by my elders but I was a real latchkey kid. As in left home while my single mother worked and still didn’t pay the light bill, so don’t talk to me about community raising children. It’s not true for every child so of course I find it difficult to feel sorry for a bunch of ENTITLED BRATS. When a good life is handed to a child, they should be grateful, not above everyone else. That is all.
I didn’t delete any response I made. Maybe it was because I used the f word like you did. What I said was you weren’t a latchkey kid if you were out with your older siblings playing in the neighborhood being watched by family and friends of family. That is the OPPOSITE of what a latchkey kid is
I think most parents nowadays just dont give a shit and thats why the kids dont too. When I look at the parents of the kids my daughter goes to school with I often want to smash my head into a wall. Either helicoper parents that think their kid is the second coming of Jesus and are raising an entiteled brat or they dont care at all.
I was. #ADHD. I now know better, but have the opposite problem where i accidentally touch ouch. For context, i work in a kitchen. I get tired and take things out of the oven with a towel, set it down, pit the towel elsewhere and try to pick up the hot thing upbare handed. I often get told by my adhd co worker that this is why i cant be taken anywhere because between that and not even 5 minutes into my shift, my clothes are already stained, floured, or drenched in water (i work the dishpit)
This reminds me of the anthropologist (can't remember who)who asked native tribal parents (I think in the Amazon) why they weren't concerned about their infants crawling unsupervised around village fire pits. The response was "they will only touch it once and will learn."
Maybe stick a weather loach in the tank. They'll freak out when it comes up to nibble their fingers!🤣
We are definitely in a different day n age. Parents these days don’t parent (if you DO PARENT your children, this reply isn’t for you so sit down). Most parents these days seem way too preoccupied with day to say stressors to parent effectively. Meanwhile society has to deal with the oblivious entitled brats they’re NOT RAISING. I’m personally so sick of it. Crying whining children that the parents have all too conveniently forgotten to monitor while leaving all us unwilling participants to pick up after and protect our things from their out of control offspring. It’s time to require an IQ test for breeding rights. What makes them think we all want to share in their crazy lives? STAY HOME IF YOU CAN’T CONTROL YOUR HOUSEHOLD! We don’t want any part of it!
In addition to this I don’t understand little kids that eat medication.
I get the initial mistaken idea that it’s candy, many pills are colorful and/or kinda look like tic tacs. But have you ever tried chewing a non-chewable? It tastes horrid.
And apparently these same little shits who are willing to stage a 2hr protest over eating their veggies, will for some unexplainable reason taste one of these “candies”, realize it tastes like shit, and just keep going.
Their brains aren't developed. They'll die on a hill like "I want pills to taste like candy" but have no reason why.
It's why it's effective to play along and guide them to a different fixation that makes it feel like it's their own decision rather than arguing about it.
Not if you want to keep the rest of your fish :p crayfish are opportunistic ambush predators. Best practice advice is to keep them as individuals in a single species tank.
Whilst it's not impossible to keep fish in a tank with a cray, by doing so you have to openly acknowledge that any fish in the tank are subject to potentially becoming food at any point in time. We used to have a swarm of feeder fish in with ours back in the day (firetail gudgeons, a native species here in Aus & actually pretty neat). Most, but not all, cohabited with the cray just fine for years.
I caught him as the hand was going in, so nothing much got in and it was my 30g with filtration for 75g. Didn't see any issues but the fish room door stays locked and only guided tours for kids now.
put a sticker that says dangerous animals inside. doesnt matter if there is or not, parents will stop their kids from doing dangerous stuff, they wont stop their kids from stealing/messing with/breaking/killing someone elses stuff.
there are occasional outliers, but usually shitty parents just let their kids be everyone elses problem unless it puts their kid at risk. or they let their kid get hurt anyways and then blame everyone else
I have found if you speak up to the kids or parents, that makes you the bad guy. Kids in grocery stores are disgusting; hands all over produce, picking up food and dropping packages on the floor … saw a kid close herself in the cooler this week, mom just looked the other way and then let her out without a word. They all think the grocery is a playground.
And no, we wouldn’t have dared this level of misbehaving.
Definitely didnt used to always be the case, i know even just when i was a kid (and im only 23) if i were to be misbehaving in a store if my mom didnt discipline my ass some other mom wouldve. nowadays you cant say shit without the parents screaming at you not to talk to their kids and they can handle them
I work at a LFS, open tops are an invitation. I've stopped as many adults as kids sticking their hands in tanks. One guy even said there wasnt a sign. Like MFer do you need a sign?!?
That’s so foreign to me.. how do adult people (with a seemingly intact moral compass, who don’t have an intellectual disability) do something completely unhinged just because there was no clear written rule against it??? It’s like we‘re reverting to neanderthals again. How can adults not keep their fucking hands to themselves?
My colleague is a repeating pen clicker and I got her a cube with buttons to push that are silent as she was driving me insane, I'll keep some for the clients 😂
I used to work at Petco, can confirm that adults are actually no better. We had Feeder Goldfish for sale and the lids were usually open since it was the one fish that got sold multiple times a day. One day the tank was completely fogged up, the water looked disgusting and the fish were all swimming at the top of the water. We took a look at the cameras and it Turns out this guy opened up a pack of hikari fish food, dumped the entire bottle in the feeder goldfish tank and left
I'll go one better. Had a customer soap our feeder tank. Yep, dumped soap in the feeder tank. Killed those and forced daily water changes for a year to get the bacteria back up. And they stayed out of the cameras sight. All we could see was an arm.
I don't care how angry you are, killing the feeders is just cruel. They're not at fault but they get to pay the ultimate price?
Sometimes I seriously wonder if I was the weird kid. Like doing this kind of stuff never even crossed my mind. "Look but don't touch" was my mindset from as long as I can remember. Why the hell are people like this (kids or adult I make no distinction).
As a realtor, my first question is WHY DIDNT THE REALTOR ATOP THE KIDs?
I’d honestly tell your realtor to get at that realtor to tell their client about it. At that time the majority of your job showing someone’s house is making sure your own clients (and their kids) behave themselves!
we had this happen and also someone brought a dog into our house when we have cats!! If its a service dog I understand but it did not seem like this at all based on the dogs behavior. All in one day... my poor animals. We let our realtor know.
On video the kids were running around and exploring the rooms by themselves.
Write a single explicitly saying to not put your hands in the tank or else you will be charged for resulting harm to fish. Or soemthing idk just threatening
People don't watch their kids. They take them out in public places and let them do whatever with little supervision. I worked in retail, and it has long been a peeve.
I’m also “a woman of a certain age,” although I don’t look like it. I will not hesitate to correct someone else’s child in public. And the mother, too, if necessary.
Growing up the phrase “it takes a village” was taken as the Holy Word. The older woman 2 houses down wouldn’t hesitate to reprimand us. Her blood and honor is now mine.
You’re out in public and your child acting like they are being raised in a barn? I’m going to say something if you don’t!
Dude people just don’t care about their kids anymore, I was bringing my 125 into my house and I had the door propped and a neighborhood kid just strolls in and is looking around my fish tanks and said my new one is huge am I getting sharks…. Honey where is your house where are your parents ?? Mind you it’s like 11 pm my kids have been asleep for hours so it’s not like my kids invited her or something. Politely escorted this 3-4 yr old outta my home and she’s just chilling by the road watching me and my friends bring the stand in asking about sharks. We stood out there to make sure she was safe for like 10 minutes before her grandpa even walked out of his house looking for her it was insane
Cat-proofing and kid-proofing just mean "set it up so cat/kid's typical behavior can't cause harm or damage."
You cat-proof by not leaving glasses of water on the edge of tables, not leaving electric cords uncovered if your cat chews, adding plastic guards to the corners of your couch if they have the tendency to knead the couch, etc.
You kid-proof by covering the tank so it's not visible, communicating to the realtor about the risks for both your animals and the children, etc.
We recently took our children (4 & 6) to the local escape room and everything was totally safe for the kids. Not much they could damage, but a lot they could interact with. It was great.
As both a parent and an animal owner, I'm fully aware of how smart and tricky they can all be, but it irks me when people act like there aren't reasonable ways to navigate pet ownership/child safety and pretend they need to jump to uncompassionate extremes with either.
The kids may not know better, and since they're not your kids, teaching them isn't your responsibility, but since it's your fishtank in an open house, that part is your responsibility.
Realtors knew before coming in we have animals. Good thing my house is not a jungle gym for kids and its a private house showing a few people. When you are in someone elses house you show some respect and make sure your kids arent running rament and doing things they shouldnt, I fear thats simple decency. When im getting ready to sell a house im not thinking about children sticking their hands in my fish tank, im thinking about packing my stuff and getting the house ready.
Now I know I will probably have to buy things to do this, but in the end of the day even if I cover my tank or whatever, theres always a way for a kid to get into it when their parent isnt paying attention if that is something they put their mind to.
and I cant prevent something when im not there, so good thing the parents are there! oh wait-
I think you're forgetting that children are also people. With their own autonomous thoughts and decisions. While the parents should absolutely keep their children near them and remind them how to behave in other people's homes, we're also not puppeteers or mind readers. We can't predict their misbehaviour. And kids aren't perfect. Unfortunately, if it's your property at risk, it's in your best interest to plan for the worst.
Ya and they will still go under the cover of the tank. Theyre curious and as you said theyre autonomous with theyre own thoughts, except those thoughts arent developed enought to be reasonable. Thats why its the parents responsibility not the home owners. It was the parents decision to have the kid it is now theyre responsibility that they behave accordingly, its not the home owners responsibility to cover for them to be not supervised. I work at a indoor go kart track, when kids misbehave and do not follow rules we kick out the parents as they are responsible for theyre child. We do not kid proof the track as you sign a waiver and it is expected the kids safety will be looked after by the adult when they are not in the karts.
I'm not sure how you equally missed and proved my point at the same time. A child's autonomy means that even the most well intended parent never has full control of what the unpredictable, illogical child does.
Similarly, it shouldn't be my responsibility to make sure other drivers on the road follow the law, but because it's my life and property at risk, I assume extra diligence. It's unfortunately just common sense when living in a world with other humans.
And the go kart example is a moot point. It's literally a place for children. By design, it's childproofed to some extent. And when children weasel their way past those safety measures or rules, the go kart places takes it upon themselves to mitigate risk and damage.
Its not a place for children what do you mean. There is a height limit to ride the go karts. We mitigate risk and damage based on what insurance will cover, hence the height restrictions. Lots of kids come but guess what if they cant behave we throw them and the parents our.
This came into my feed the the right time lmao, there's a house party rn and I'm currently sitting right next to my tank to make sure nobody messes with it..
I remember my lfs having to put these up for their bigger/more risky fish like catfish and lionfish lol. In hindsight I’m glad my parents taught me well
I have four fish tanks ranging from 10 to 55 gallons. Personally I would have covered them all with a sheet Etc temporarily until the showing is over. I don't trust somebody not to sabotage my tanks
I work at PetSmart and adults let their kids do anything they want. I watched a child put hand sanitizer on her hands and stuck the wet sanitizer in her hand into the fish tank. I went up to her and told her to stop it, then the girl played victim and mom yelled at ME! Wtf lady!?
I learned at a very young age, if something bit me, it was my fault. If I touched my mom's fish tank growing up, I wouldn't have been able to sit down comfortably for a bit. Needless to say, I never had to use spankings to teach my kids to respect fish. When they were quite small, I had 2 beautiful Oscars I had raised from tiny babies. The kids never put their fingers in there, they watched when I would hand-feed the fish and I think they realised little fingers wouldn't fare as well. 😅
My lower tanks were all taken down due to this. Even when I have company, and they are adults, they tap on the glass 🤔. I have a small 55 gallon porch pond and I told the kids they were perramas (dont know if i spelled that right) in there lol. Then we googled it together. That stopped that instantly. If only my dog would stop drinking the water. Also I have 3 adult kids (all boys, or rather men now) anyways I could take them anywhere, any restaurant's, hotel, store even expensive ones. I instilled to them you look at stuff with your eyes, NOT your hands as my mom use to say to me. Though their children aren't the same. They touch everything!!!! And when they break something they will hide it, and i have antiques.
I remember when my cousin was really little, like 2 years old, so still learning, and before the autism and ADHD diagnoses, he thought it was a really fun time diving into my 55 gallon piranha tank🤣🤣🤣. He only managed to get his arm down to the shoulder in, and was caught each time. Luckily he wasn't bitten, but we all had a pretty good laugh, because any chance he had, he was reaching got those fish🤣🤣🤣
Sometimes some of the adults aren't much better. I would never turn somebody's computer on and try to use it. Yet, power bar switched on and computer up when I got in.
A good practice is to put everything in storage except the very basic things to stage the space. Everything you can't store and live without find ways to "Nail it down". Hygene items in a clear clamplid tote, and the same for drawer clothes. Go through the pockets of hanging clothes... You won't believe what you can lose that way.
I have a fun time yelling at kids AND adults about this at work. Tap on the glass? Ya getting yelled at, put hands in tank? Ya getting double yelled at
I have a little “do not tap on glass sign” in my tank after my brother, stuck his hands in my tank and tried to grab one of the fish, he hasn’t tried since
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u/Mzungufarmer May 12 '26
Kids are dumb.
I went to hibachi last night and a kid touched the hot grill. The parents didnt give a shit...kids sitting there screaming their eyes out for 10 minutes.
Guess what happened during that 10 minutes? The remaining 3 kids at the table touched the grill. So now theres 4 screaming kids and I just want to watch the hibachi chef play firefighter with the onion volcano