A Mom Let Her Kid Do Self-Checkout At A Busy Store & Her Parenting Style Has People Split

Is there ever a bad time for a parenting lesson?

A mom has triggered a big debate around that question after telling Reddit about the time she let her child run the self-checkout scanner at a store, even though there was a lineup behind them.

The mom says a customer eventually confronted her and called her an "a**hole," so she turned to Reddit's popular "Am I The A**hole" community to find out if it was true.

She explained that she took her 7-year-old son to the grocery store, and when they got to the self-checkout, he asked her If she could scan the groceries.

“I am a big believer in learning by doing,” explained the mom. “I like to give my son as interactive a role in things as possible, and if he wants to do something himself, I always at least let him try unless it's unsafe.”

So she decided to let him go ahead and scan the items.

This wouldn’t usually be such a big deal, except she says the grocery store was quite busy and there was a long line of people waiting to also use the self-checkout.

“There are about ten self-checkouts and one line for all the machines, so people don't line up behind individual machines,” explained the mom. “He was a lot slower than I would have been, but he managed to do it all with my supervision, even the produce.”

“As we started to wheel away, a woman walked up and slammed her grocery basket on the counter. She said, 'Thanks for doing that as slowly as possible, a**hole.'”

The mom was taken aback by the woman’s reaction and called it “incredibly rude and uncalled for.”

The mom ended her story by saying, “some people are slower than others. It is what it is. There were several other machines being used and freed up, so we can't have made that big an impact on her wait time.”

Reactions to her story were quite split and there were over 4,000 comments from people weighing in on the issue.

One person asked, “was there a long line waiting for the self-checkout machines?” followed by, “learning by doing is great, but there’s always a time and place for things,” which received over 16,500 likes.

“Self-checkout as we know it probably won't even exist when the kid is older. It's not an essential life skill they have to master at 7. Let the kid do a few things and move it along,” wrote another user.

However, not everyone agreed.

Another user wrote, "Independence is a skill in itself. Maybe it will or won't, but teaching kids to figure new things out is valuable.”

“Nah, introduction to tech and such things is so important for a child's growth as we speed up more and more needing people to adapt to said technologies,” wrote another user. “People not letting children interact with technology in any aspect is severely hindering them for the future.”

Another user shot back at the above argument and commented, "'I learned self-checkout late in life, and I wish my parents taught me when I was a kid because I struggle' said no one ever.”

“Yep, because this was also a 'learn by doing' opportunity to teach him about being aware of your surroundings and considering others,” wrote another user.

Another person jumped in to defend the mom against the person who called her an a**hole.

"It's a valuable lesson, and she's out of line," the poster said about the second woman. "It takes as long as it takes."

Do you think the mom was in the wrong?

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.