A parent has been called an ‘a**hole’ by a fellow shopper, after they let their son help out with the grocery shopping.

The parent says they took their seven-year-old son to the supermarket, and allowed him to help at the self-service checkout, because they’re a ‘big believer in learning by doing’.

“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,” the parent explained on reddit.

“When we got to the self checkout he confidently told me he could do it by himself, so I let him. There are about ten self checkouts and one line for all the machines, so people don’t line up behind individual machines. He was a lot slower than I would have been, but he managed to do it all with my supervision, even the produce.”

But here’s where the situation got tense. It appeared that while it didn’t seem the seven-year-old was holding anyone up, it had annoyed another customer.

“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 slow as possible, asshole.’

“I thought that was incredibly rude and uncalled for. 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.

“It was a Sunday, so fairly busy, but there were quite a few machines, and a lot of people wanted to wait in the cashier line. My son and I waited less than five minutes.”

The parent then asked fellow redditors if they are, in fact, an a**hole for allowing their child to help. And opinions were divided.

“You should have let your son help with a few items, not all of them, or taken him at a less busy time so you’re not inconveniencing others.”

“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 seven. Let the kid do a few things and move it along.”

“The lady is definitely an a**hole for saying that … I usually don’t mind waiting extra time for parents to help kids learn really world tasks. It actually warms my heart to watch kids learning that kind of stuff. But after 10 minutes, I’d probably be getting frustrated, too. Respect for each other in public goes both ways. One party should have some extra patience for a parent handling a child, but the parent should also show respect for the time of the other customers.”

“Yeah, my kid loves doing the self checkout, but I only have him help with scanning if it’s busy (he’s fastest at that) and I do the bagging and paying. You were being rude as hell.”

What do you think? Do you let your kids help at the self-service checkout? Let us know in the comments below.