Mom Gives ‘Snarky’ Response After Toy Store Staff Was ‘Rude’ to Her Daughter

A mother of two young kids shared that “rude” employees at a toy store toyed with her emotions during her family’s recent shopping excursion.

The woman chronicled the jarring outing on community forum Mumsnet, where she asked other users if they think she’s being unreasonable. 

“I’m holding my 18-month-old daughter so she doesn’t pull everything off shelves,” she recalled. “My 4-year-old daughter runs ahead and picks up a unicorn Jellycat and cuddles it saying, ’Can I get this please, mommy?’ ”

Then, the mom said that the “shop assistant shouts across the room, ‘Can she put that back if you’re not going to buy it as it’s expensive.’ Me and my husband exchange glances, but I tell my daughter to put it back.”

At this point, the mom became uninterested in spending any money in this store anymore so — within earshot of the staff — she told her husband, “Let’s go and find another toy shop where we’re allowed to touch the toys.”

“Yes, I was being snarky, but I was annoyed,” she noted. 

The owner then told the mom that “these toys are expensive” and that “she owns all the stock so if my daughter damages it, it costs her money.” The owner — who emphasized that due to unfavorable experiences with past customers, this is just the way they operate now — added that, ”It was clear [you aren’t] going to buy anything,” the mom remembered. 

“Why do you think that?” the mom immediately replied, to which the owner apparently responded with, “It just is.”

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Unhappy with the experience, the mom wondered if she was in the wrong for letting her oldest daughter touch the toys inside the toy store.

In a Mumsnet poll under her post, 68 percent of more than 2,000 voters as of May 1 picked “You are being unreasonable” as their voting option.

One reader said, “I was taught ‘you look with your eyes, not with your hands’ when I was small. I think you and your husband were rude.”

Another agreed, commenting, “What the shop keeper said was a little snarky but in no way justifies your self-righteous response.”