Supermarkt Bad Father Example

Me and girlfriend went to the supermarket today to do groceries for a Christmas dinner. We picked up some things we needed and went to the queue for the cashier.

It was a queue where you probably had to wait for 5 minutes since it was busy due to people buying ingredients for their Christmas dinner as well probably.

Right in front of me, there was a father with a son of around 4-5 years old if I would estimate. He had a cart with all his shopping items in it. After a while in the queue, he realized that he was in the queue where no shopping carts were allowed. So this father made a mistake.

Then he did the following. He told his son to stay in the cart and queue as he went back to the entrance of the store and grabbed a basket. He came back and put the shopping items in the basket. While he was doing that, he said to himself (or subconsciously to others near him): ‘I’m not going to wait for another queue again’. Then he put the cart somewhere in an aisle and left it there.

Within that moment, I lost respect for the man before I even got the chance to talk to him, no matter how rich/poor this person may be, I wouldn’t want to know him as a person.

Why?

He displayed that he didn’t have a moral compass which I can stand next to.

He made a mistake by being in that queue. Yes, he didn’t know about it. But instead of taking the L, accepting the mistake, take his cart to another queue and correct his mistake, he chose an entirely different road. But also putting others at a disadvantage by leaving the cart in a random aisle which means blocking the road for others and creating more work for the workers.

This was in front of his son where the father should be a role model. In this instance, the father was displaying was how to cut corners, not correct the mistake(s), and put others at a disadvantage for his own benefit.

I may be reading too much in this instance. Of course, maybe he slept terribly and so was a bit more arrogant than usual. Or other things happened to his behavior. But I’m a firm believer that actions speak louder than words.

For me, those actions that were displayed were of a person that I can’t respect and align with.

When I become a father and anyone sees me do this kind of behavior where my child is there, you better beat me up cause then I lost my way, ethics, and moral compass.