Just today I took my 18-month old to a thrift store with no real intention other than to get out of the house. We played peekaboo through the clothes racks and wandered around the aisles a while until we stumbled upon aha! the toy section. Exactly as you described - thrashed and littered with children ages (i would guess) 3 to 7, no parents in sight. My son is of course too young and destructive to let alone like that, so I stuck around and let him do his part to maintain order - taking every toy that catches his eye and putting on the ground to play with for 30 seconds til he moved on to the next. I followed behind, putting them back. Whatever.
This goes on for 30 minutes or so before I pull out my phone gasp and am responding to a text when I see my son push a little girl out of the corner of my eye. She fell flat on her butt, and the tears fell heavy. And loudly. Her brother starts screaming "MOM MOM THIS BOY PUSHED [whatever her name is] MOM MOM!!!"
My son walks up and pushes the screaming boy! - and I am mortified. 3 different, panicked mom's come running and see me holding back my larger-than-average toddler from swinging at these kids and all I can muster is a nervous chuckle and a half smile. We left the store while my son threw his tantrum, thrashing wildly, slapping me, pulling my hair and saying "OWIE OWIE" over and over again.
Point being - The child left to play while the careless parent shopped was pushed down by the kid whose mother stayed with him through the shelves and back. Parenthood is... weird..... I'm (probably quite obviously) a new, single mom who has no idea what she's doing. But if this experience says anything to me it's that other parents (or people) will judge your parenting style no matter how attentive or neglectful you are... There is always something you do differently that they do, and thats basically not okay. facepalm In hindsight I wish I had been the shopping mom with the screaming kid (I think.) I mean at least then I could have found a new pair of shoes...
A little more than a decade ago I worked in a Ross store.
People wonder why the toy aisle there is always such a catastrophe, and it's because people drop their kids off (just a random spot in the store really) in the toy aisle to play with the toys while they shop. The toys really do start out on boxes, but none of these people cared. They'd dump their kids there and just have them tear the shit out of everything.
At least once a week we had some lost crying kid, and every time we'd have to put out a call through the whole store for whatever clueless jackwagon who abandoned their lil Billy to come collect him at the register. Every time, they were annoyed rather than relieved.
Maybe it was just the time, or the area, or something specific about Ross, but I couldn't imagine the carelessness some of these parents showed.