Life is tough. Things get thrown at us every day that have the potential to drastically change life as we know it. Finances, friendships, work-life, and children all can take a tole on our emotional state. Adulthood is all about managing these things. For some people, however, emotional maturity isn't a strong suit. Instead of handling difficult situations like an adult, they resort to childish antics. People of Reddit have commented on the most childish thing they've seen a parent do, and their stories are quite shocking! Content has been edited for clarity.
Like A Clip From “Meet The Fockers”

“My mother-in-law invited my parents to go along with us for a long weekend away. My husband took his little brother fishing and enjoyed the afternoon. She prepared appetizers and the guys didn’t return from fishing as quickly as she had hoped. So she proceeds to freak out on me, screaming at the top of her lungs flailing her arms and all on topics ranging from her ex-husband to how I would eventually divorce my husband one day. All in front of my speechless parents before she broke down in tears, went inside and threw all the appetizers in the trash. Then complained the rest of the weekend how she was too ill to participate in anything. It was her idea to invite my parents in the first place. This is one of many examples from her.”
Daycare Drama

“My mom would consistently show up extremely late to my after school daycare, forcing the day care ladies to stay with me for hours. And one day, I was the last one there and there were 20 minutes until after schools ends. They decided to call her in order to make sure she was coming. Turns out she was at our house. She had a tantrum about how they called her on her personal house phone and that it was harassment. She demanded they stay until 6, and it was their responsibility to stay later if needed. ‘How dare they try to get off work early?!’ She told them it was selfish for them to be skipping on their job.
I heard they privately referred to me as the kid with the annoying mom.”
Temper Tantrums Get You Nowhere

Shutterstock/kurhan
“I was working in a restaurant as a host. I was walking a family to their table (they wanted a booth, there were no booths available). I politely explained that they could wait for a booth if they wanted to, or they could sit at this table immediately. The husband (55 ish) smacked the salt, pepper, and candle off the edge of the table (shattering the salt and the candle holder). He then proceeded to lean into my face with his arm on my shoulder and say, ‘I told you I wanted a (explicit) booth.’
The language certainly wasn’t childish but breaking the candle holder and salt sure was.”
The Most Magical Meltdown In The World

“So I work at a TimeShare Resort selling theme park tickets. I had a lady (Mid 40’s) walk up to our desk with her parents to purchase some Disney tickets. After some quick chatter about prices and what Disney park they wanted to go to, they were ready to buy. I swiped the lady’s card and it was declined, (common when people typically travel outside of their state because their bank will block the card from foreign transactions). Once I told her that her card declined, she became ballistic in front of me and everybody else. She swore that there was ‘loads of money on my card, there’s no need for it to decline.’ After I explained the card issue to her she switched and started BAWLING her eyes out saying to her mother, and I quote, ‘Mommy, tell him to give me my ticketsssss,’ in front of everybody. Again… She was in her mid 40’s.”
“Emotional Depth And Maturity Of A 7-Year-Old”

Shutterstock/Rob Bayer
“I could literally write an entire book series, complete with unnecessary spin-offs, about my entitled mother. Entitlement-wise, she was pretty much what you’d expect, treated retail workers awfully (despite being one herself), demanding to see the manager, and having the emotional depth and maturity of a 7-year-old.
The most embarrassing thing she’d do though was her trademark strop (sulk) in restaurants. She’d fold her arms, slouch in her chair, and pout while looking at the table. Drove me absolutely insane when she did that. Going out to eat with her was a pain, because she’d want to pay no more than a tenner yet wanted gourmet food with outstanding service that was cooked to her own personal taste (which she’d never tell anyone what it was). Also, lamb. Crazy obsession with lamb, and if the restaurant didn’t sell it or were out of stock, then she’d berate them and try to make them feel terrible because they ruined this poor woman’s entire life by not feeding her lamb.
Also, while she treated normal servers badly, she especially treated non-English speaking servers poorly. I’m not talking about the one that came from another country to England, no, I mean servers who were in their own country listening to this crazy English woman talking LOUD and slow about how she ‘doesn’t want a salad in her burger but still wanted the lettuce and tomatoes.’ Despite herself being an immigrant, if you didn’t speak English (or simply were not from England), you were trash. I began picking up Spanish and Flemish to apologize to foreign servers she’d harassed.
Another thing she was perhaps the most entitled to was my future. She had (or still has) this belief that she was going to control every single part of my life, from the clothes I wore, the friends I kept, the reputation I built, the professions I studied, the person I married, and the children I had. She despised the idea of me doing things because I wanted to, and in her mind everything I did somehow had something to do with her. I trimmed my hair? Did it to spite her. Stayed out an hour longer than I should have? I did it because I wanted to rebel against her. I didn’t eat what she cooked? I did it because I wanted to starve and make her look like a bad mother. She simply couldn’t fathom that I could – and would – do things that didn’t involve her.
I’m 20, and I’ve grown to despise my mother more than I thought I was capable of hating someone.”
She Tried To Play The “Good Mommy”

“Last May, right around my university graduation, my friends and I went to see the Avengers. We were seated next to this mom and her toddler (probably about 5 years old). Everybody was really excited to see it, and it was actually my second time seeing it.
This toddler (not his fault, I know and totally understand) randomly throughout the movie sings his alphabet song, counts random things on the screen, and cries. The mom sits there and does absolutely NOTHING to even try to calm her child down and keep him from ruining the movie for everybody in the theater. It got to be about maybe 1/3 of the movie being done, and one of my friends couldn’t take it anymore and taps the mom on the shoulder and very politely requests that she try to calm down her child. She acted like an insane psycho freak who was totally offended that he would even attempt to ask such a question. I didn’t hear what was said, but he went back to his seat very angry.
Then another 20 minutes or so pass with her son doing what children do, and she just continues to watch the movie. Finally, I get fed up with it because the movie is about to get to the good part with all the action. I lean over and said something along the lines of ‘Excuse me ma’am, do you mind calming down your child?’
This psycho replies very rudely and aggressively with, ‘I’m going to ask you to get out of my personal space or I’m going to make a scene. You don’t want me to make a scene.’ At this point I’m thinking ‘whoa what the heck lady?!’ I go back to my seat and see if her behavior changes any, and after 15 minutes of nothing changing, I get up and go get the management. Normally, I wouldn’t because children can’t be controlled especially when it’s a movie that they probably don’t even understand or want to see. However, this lady was such an aggressive and incompetent idiot that I just had to.
I bring management in and show them who it is. By the way, while I was gone, she had turned on Angry Birds on FULL BLAST sound for her child and couldn’t figure out how to put the phone on silent. When I get up to her seat, she points her finger at me and gets within an inch of my face and says, ‘You, I want to see you outside now!’
She refused to leave the theater and all the while I’m saying, ‘Can we please go outside. I don’t want to ruin the movie for everybody else.’ My boyfriend goes outside with me at this point. Security guards get in between us outside because this lady is just flipping out. She kept ranting, ‘I am a mom. I have the right to be here. I paid money to see the movie.’ She basically acted like having a child justified totally disrupting the movie for the whole theater. Overall very angry individual. Selfish if you ask me. I just kept saying, ‘Yes, you do have the right to be here as does your child but you don’t have the right to ruin the movie for an entire theater of people who also paid money to see the movie.’ Then the lady lies to the management and pretends to play the ‘good mommy’ victim by saying that she was just about to leave when she noticed her child wasn’t going to behave. That was a load of garbage. By then, half the movie was over, and she hadn’t budged an inch. She only left because I got the management to throw her out of the movie (I believe they refunded her for her to see the movie another day). I then went back in to enjoy the rest of the movie.
Funny thing was another friend went to see the Avengers the next day and some mom walks out complaining that it was the second time people were complaining about her child. I bet you it was that same idiot mom.”
Homeroom Horror

Shutterstock/Aaron Amat
“I had a student miss a question on a math homework assignment. The mother showed up at my door during homeroom the next day (no idea how she even got there with no visitors pass…) and proceeded to tell me in front of my class that her husband had two doctoral degrees, and she had a masters and that I had graded her son’s assignment incorrectly.
Well, I hadn’t, and I wrote the problem on the board and had another student from the class solve it (correctly and the way they had been taught) much to the embarrassment of mom.
She left without an apology and I made sure the office knew to not let her anywhere near my room again unless it was scheduled. Thankfully her son was not in my homeroom as I’m sure he would have been sick with embarrassment. I had the son work the problem for me again in class that day and did give him credit back for it. Not due to pressure from mom but because when I looked at his work that morning it became really clear that he had done it correctly (there was a fair amount of erased work) and that his super well-educated mom and dad had most likely made him change it.”
This Lady Needed A Happy Meal

“My boyfriend’s mom is something else, let me tell you. I think the first time I realized I was not going to get along with her, she had taken me and my children to go get McDonald’s for everyone.
I already didn’t want to go, because I didn’t know her well enough to be alone with her for any lengthy amount of time, in my opinion. But I went to make my boyfriend happy.
A trip that should have taken, like, twenty minutes tops (she was getting food for 6 people) wound up taking close to an hour.
When we got there, in the drive through no less, she took her sweet time ordering and asking these people all manner of questions about the food. We had everything picked out beforehand, so she spent an extra ten minutes questioning them for just her order alone.
THEN, we get to the window and her card won’t work. They tell her that it’s their system, not the card. They always have issues with whatever type of card it was she had tried to use.
Now, this woman has all manner of credit cards in her bag. She also always has at LEAST two hundred dollars cash on her. My point being, she could have used a different method of payment. Instead, she makes them run the card, like, six more times. When that doesn’t work (and she’s been screaming at the poor drive through person the entire time) she pulls up and parks.
The she makes me and my kids get out with her because she’s acting like a raving lunatic. Says it’s because she’ll need our help to carry the bags, but it’s because she wants an audience.
We go in, and she then proceeds to degrade the kid at the counter. Calls him names. Tells him she’s going to call the owner of this particular store because she KNOWS her card will work here and ‘someone’s doing something funny.’ The whole time, I’m apologizing.
I told my kids to go play so they wouldn’t have to witness it. I even offered to pay for the food. But she was making such a scene that they just gave her the whole order for free. Like, refused to take my money (probably because she screamed at me for even offering) and told her she had her food, and to leave.”
Granny Was A Narcissistic Hypochondriac

“Apparently, one Thanksgiving when I was about 4, my older brother, cousins, and I decided that we would put on a ‘talent show’ for the adults–ya know, singing, dancing, telling jokes, etc. The adults in the audience were my (and my brother’s) parents, my cousins’ parents (Dad’s brother and his wife), and my paternal grandparents (Dad’s dad and stepmom).
Well, the kids were performing, the parents and Grandpa were eating it up…but as my mom tells the story, Grandma just sat there with a sour expression on her face and her arms folded across her chest. Finally, out of the blue…she suddenly doubled over and started wailing about how she ‘didn’t feel good.’ Grandpa, Uncle, and Aunt stopped everything to tend to her, Dad reluctantly also went over to check on her, and Mom just sat there staring at her like, ‘Really? You’re doing this NOW?’
Because here’s the thing: feigning sickness was her go-to every time she didn’t want to do something or thought people weren’t giving her enough attention. Family make plans for an outing you don’t care for? Cry about not feeling well and guilt them into cancelling. One of your adult children telling everyone about something good that happened to them? Cry about not feeling well and ruin the other person’s moment. Someone suggests that a remark you just made was rude and uncalled for? Cry about not feeling well and regain everyone’s sympathy. She pulled this stunt on a fairly regular basis; I actually remember it happening a few times during my early childhood (Granny Dearest passed away when I was, like, nine or 10). Grandpa and Uncle catered to her every whim, Dad went along with it out of a sense of obligation, and Mom always knew that the whole thing was fake but tried not to make waves.
Of all the times Grandma did this, though, Mom always told me that she found THAT incident to be the most heinous. Because while Mom could understand Grandma trying to manipulate and one-up other adults, the idea that an elderly woman couldn’t stand to share the spotlight with children (including me, who was literally a toddler at the time) was just completely insane.”
She Berated Him Like A Child

“Introducing my partner to my mom was so embarrassing. We went to a fancy seafood restaurant, and she orders white vino (this place so fancy that they give you the spit bucket). He comes over with the white, and she starts screeching ‘I didn’t order THAT! I ordered RED!’ He kind of stutters and it’s obvious this poor lad is about to panic. I’m like, ‘No mum, you definitely said white,’ (poor boyfriend has no idea what we’re talking about because he’s not a drinker). After insisting, she definitely said white, she accepts her mistake, but doesn’t apologize to the waiter who’s been awkwardly standing there while we had this discussion. I apologize to him and my mum later says, ‘You know, it’s really embarrassing when you apologize for me. You don’t have to apologize to them. It’s their job!’ I just reminded her that I work in food service, so I understand how it feels to be treated like garbage at work and like to make things easier.”
No One Even Knows You

“My stepmother threw a tantrum at my mom’s funeral because my aunt kept her and my (estranged) dad from sitting in the ‘family’ section. Literal foot stomping and screaming tantrum in the funeral home. I don’t know why she was so emotional at the funeral of someone she’d never met. I had never even seen her before that day.
She was an unpleasant lady.”
No Way To Spend A Birthday

Shutterstock/ViChizh
“About 8 years ago, my mom hardly spoke to me on my birthday (23rd Dec), answered in single words on Christmas Eve and phoned my Dad up on Christmas Day to say she didn’t want to see me. I was a wreck all through those 3 days wondering what I had done. Me and Dad (they are separated) go to pick her up from work on Boxing Day (her birthday) and she was right as rain. After 15 minutes of wittering on, she casually mentions that the reason she completely ignored her already anxiety-ridden 15 year old daughter for Christmas was because I didn’t get her a Christmas card that said: ‘Mom’ on it in big enough letters. Completely ignored the big bag of presents I’d spent a lot of time on getting as well.”
A Little Dramatic, Don’t You Think?

“A grown man once said, ‘I would rather have my son die than sit out at his birthday party.’ It was the most hilarious tantrum I have ever seen. His kid wasn’t following rules and almost hurt someone, so he got sat out for a moment – after multiple warnings. Dad did full on tantrum including stomping and turning bright red. I 100% believe he did not understand what he said. Just like when a toddler throws a fit about nothing.”
Too Childish To Admit They Were Wrong

“My parents are very smart people. Highly educated, Ph.D.’s in math and neuroscience. They’re both members of Mensa and would administer IQ tests to me as a child. Armed with the phenomenal results of my IQ tests (156), they got me into every school, and every extracurricular program they could manage. When I started doing poorly–failing entire grades even–it was never my fault. It was the fault of the institution, because ‘I was a child genius,’ and there was no way I could ever be wrong.
I remember sitting in the principal’s office, while he tried to explain to my mom that I was going to need to repeat a grade. She screamed at him as loudly as she could, berating him for over 20 minutes and blaming him for my poor academic performance. The whole time I sat white-faced in the corner. This happened multiple times a year. I actually think her tantrums are what got me through to the next grade each year.
The problem with these IQ tests–when given to kids–is that they are often inaccurate and usually indicate that the child’s brain has developed slightly faster than the other kids in their age group. Then, puberty kicks in and levels out the playing field. Sometimes, the kids who were more developed at 8 ends up being the dumbest kid in the class by age 13. This was me. Two very smart, although arrogant people had (by an unfortunate fluke of genetics) had a kid who ended up well below average. My mom got her psychologist friend to give me the WAIS when I was 19, I scored 93.
Sometimes, I think my mom just faked my scores as a kid to help get me into good schools.”
“Out Of Pure Pettiness”

Shutterstock/The Vine Studios
“My stepdad left our dog’s feces on the floor for about 8 hours and waited until someone else came home from either school or work to make them clean it because he felt like it wasn’t his responsibility to clean up after her. I didn’t even get to step foot in the house because this man opened then door, blocked the entrance and went, ‘The dog left a mess for you to clean.’ Like, he really sat there all day inhaling dog feces out of pure pettiness.”
Incompetent Psycho

“My daughter had a friend several years ago. My girl spent the night over at the friend’s house ONE time. She came home upset because this girl’s mom was ‘a psycho.’ Not only did she lose her mind on my daughter for simply asking her friend to play a certain radio station i.e. ‘how dare you tell my daughter what to do!!’ But, she also took them to fast food restaurant and proceeded to scream at the poor girl working the register for being out of a certain item. For ten solid minutes, she screamed and threatened, and was in general just a giant piece of garbage. There was a picture of said item on the menu board, so she figured she should get all their food free for it being sold out. My daughter never wanted to go back, though she felt really sorry for her little friend with the crazy mom. This woman scared the mess out of my daughter. I still think of that girl and hope she is able to grow up without mimicking this behavior.”
It’s Like She Was Her Son’s Daughter

Shutterstock/Dmytro Zinkevych
“My ex boyfriend’s mom was one of the absolute worst people I’ve ever met. Incredible victim complex to measures I didn’t even know were possible. He constantly had to give her money and she would always use the ‘I’m your mother!’ card. She was a hypochondriac and an addict who enabled his addiction because she would share pills with him. She severely traumatized him and he is just as narcissistic as her.
For his birthday, we went to this beautiful restaurant and the entire time, she criticized everything down to the water. Due to the fact that she didn’t have money, and never went out, she expected this dinner to be perfect. However, I’m a server, so I understood that isn’t possible. She was so blatantly rude to the server. I finally got sick of it. I stood up and said, ‘[Her name] WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP AND LET HER DO HER JOB,’ while profusely apologizing to the server. For the rest of the dinner, his mom didn’t touch her plate or say another word. She also refused to pay for her food so my ex, on his birthday had to. I left the poor server $100 tip just for the inconvenience and profusely apologized before we left.”