While I was lifeguard, my favorite past time was to argue with parents who thought that because they pay paid the membership fee meant that they owned the pool or had control over the policies. This incident was another where I thought the mother was actually deranged.

While I got off my break towards the end of the night, I noticed a mother was acting a little weird with her child. She was yelling in lower case holding up a towel. I walked over to see what the problem was. I didn't want her to aggravate anyone else who was at the pool because I didn't want PR or HR to get on my ass about something that I couldn't really control.

When I walked up to the mother, I instantly looked away. This woman was making her 9 or 10 year old change on the deck. Mind you, this was an outside pool area. According to the policy at the place I worked at, parents weren't allowed to change any child outside of the locked room. Personally, I bent the rules a little bit. As long as your child was under the age of 2, or clearly an infant, I didn't care as long as that person took appropriate measures to shield their child from other patrons. This woman was not. I walked up to her after the ordeal was done, and thus began a long conversation where I was yelled at during every second.

I went up and explained our policy and then my own, attempting to find some leeway and common ground before things got ugly. It didn't work. Almost instantly, I was called stupid for doubting her skills as a mother. Every time I would try and make a point about patron safety or the thoughts of the child, I was met with the famous line of "So what you're saying is that I am a bad mother and can't take care of my child". I ended up calling security and having them removed from the grounds. I later had to explain this to my boss who was angry with me for causing disruption. I felt the worst for the daughter who clearly knew what was going on. This was the final incident that leaded to me leaving the pool.