Have You Ever Witnessed Bad Parenting...

... And really wished you could go up to the parent/ carer and slap them around a bit?

Today, after wandering around a shopping centre for a bit, I sat down on a bench for a breather. In front of me was a frozen yoghurt stall (the kind where you can choose all sorts of things for toppings), and to the left of me was a fancy cupcake stall.

I heard the loud, open-mouthed cough of a child who's not yet learned to cover their mouths (or never been told) and looked up warily- the cough belonged to a very large little girl, looking no older than six years old, accompanied by who I think was her grandfather. When I say very large, think about nearly twice as big as Honey Boo Boo. In short, the poor girl was quite obese.

At this point I wasn't really focusing on this, though: I was focusing on how the little girl had her face pressed up against the screen that shielded the yoghurt toppings, every so often producing a single, open mouthed cough in the direction of all the fresh fruit and things. It was an impressively disgusting cough: she opened her mouth wide and stuck her tongue out a little. Not pleasant when so close to food, but Grandad didn't comment.

'Fine whatever,' I thought. 'Just as long as they don't walk past me and the kid doesn't cough her germs near me.'

So of course, as you know the way the universe works around me, out of the many benches and many spaces there were, they walked straight towards me and chose to stop by my bench. The child sat right next to me. I tried not to visibly flinch when the girl coughed in my general direction.

I noticed that Grandad had ordered the girl a medium sized yoghurt with three toppings. Now, this frozen yoghurt place is always very generous with their portions and me, a grown woman, can only just about finish a small sized one with two toppings. The portion size of this pot was gargantuan- how was this little girl- a big little girl even so- finish all of that? Sure enough, the child had only eaten a few scoops before announcing that she had had enough.

What happened next horrified me more than a little.

The grandfather- not the little girl- pointed out the cupcake stand, and asked her if she wanted one instead. The girl, quite sensibly, asked him why. Grandad's response?

"They look really pretty, and they're probably healthier too. You can throw that away now, let's go get a cupcake."

And so I watched in stunned outrage for the now enthusiastic little girl as she chucked the largest part of her wasted frozen yoghurt into the bin and they both made their way to the cupcake stand. Of course, the girl plumped straight for one of the larger ones rather than the small ones.

There's not really much else I can say about that...