Gotcha. Yeah, parents can definitely suck just as much as any other human (or, to be fair, they can just be exhausted or distracted). Though I will also note that in the cases where my kids have acted unexpectedly badly, it is notable to me that my usual nuclear threat (“we’ll just leave”) carries with it a financial penalty as well (now we have to pay for food we ordered but can’t eat), which adds an additional wrinkle to this problem; particularly for lower-income folks.

I do think that I usually have a lower tolerance for my kids’ behavior than most of the people around me do, so hopefully that’s part of what is on my side here.