Viral TikTok about bringing screaming kids to Costco has ignited an internet debate

Costco is a pretty magical place—the free samples! The low, low prices! The fact that they have pretty much everything!—but it’s also kind of chaotic. Like, do you ever go on a weekend? From the cart gridlock to the checkout lines that stretch back to the trail mix aisle, there’s just a lot going on at Costco. We don’t need to add any extra elements of chaos to the experience.

Which is why one mom posted a now viral TikTok video with a relatable sentiment: Leave screaming kids at home when you head to stock up on your frozen chicken bites, organic maple syrup by the gallon, those absolutely addictive roasted seaweed snacks, and a few pairs of sweatpants, because they always get you with the sweatpants.

TikTok mom Tori filmed herself eating some pizza at her local Costco’s food court, and in the background, you can hear kids screaming.

“This is why when you go to Costco, you leave the kids with dad and come by yourself,” she says in the video. “You don’t come to Costco as a family when kids scream. Leave them home with dad.”

She also wrote over the video using text overlay, “I will never understand why families bring kids who do nothing but scream to Costco, or any shopping experience.”

We have to state, for the record, that there’s some nuance in this take. Sometimes kids are kids and they scream, even in public places. What can you do? But Tori also has a point, especially with the way Costco is set up with all that concrete and the cavernous size of the warehouse where screams can just echo forever. Hello, migraine.

Single parents or parents who have multiple kids and busy work schedules often don’t have the luxury of choice when it comes to when they go grocery shopping or whether there’s a parent available to stay home with the kids while the other parent takes care of chores or household tasks. It’s so important to recognize that.

But it’s also OK to acknowledge that yes, screaming kids can grate on your nerves. And in this case, where Tori specified in the comments that both parents were at Costco and stayed in the store for an hour with a kiddo who screamed the whole time? Yeah, maybe one of the parents could have exited with the crying little one.

Which side of this debate are you on?