11 Children of Karens who recounted their most publicily humiliating experiences with them: 'The store closed at 10. We were there until 2 AM'

Is it really so hard to commit to learning the most basic emotional regulation skills? 

Although all of us have suffered the presence of a Karen at some point, not everybody is so unlucky as to have grown up with one. Witnessing a Karen on the rampage in the wild, cutting an underpaid service employee down to size, or even being the unlucky worker on the receiving end of that behavior is not in the same league as having a mom or dad with Karen tendencies. That is nearly 24 hours a day of exposure to somebody liable to go on an unstoppable rant at any minute.

Miserable as it is to think about it, a big proportion of those unreasonable people who haunt hospitality and retail establishments will have kids, and those kids are likely to be in a front-row seat to witness all of their crazy behavior. If all the stories we hear of dysfunctional families are anything to go by, being related to a Karen is a common affliction. 

If you get easily angered by small annoyances, you might think that it would be better to think twice about whether reproducing is the right decision for you. The stress of having kids may only increase the chances of an embarrassing outburst of Karen behavior in public. Every child has had those moments with parents where they wish that the ground would just swallow them, but with these kinds of moms and dads, this kind of situation is likely to happen with a lot more frequency.