‘Judge me all you want’: Mom sparks debate about returning shopping cart at grocery store

One mom raised eyebrows after posting a now-viral TikTok video sharing her opinion about why she chose not to return her shopping cart at a grocery store.

In the video which has now amassed nearly 12 million views since being posted on May 30, Leslie Dobson says, “I’m not returning my shopping cart. And you can judge me all you want.”

“I’m not getting my groceries into my car, getting my children into the car and then leaving them in the car to go return the cart, so if you’re gonna give me a dirty look, f— off,” Dobson says in the video.

The viral clip has sparked a debate leaving people divided on whether or not to return your grocery cart to a corral in a parking lot or leave it near your parking spot.

Dobson, a California-based clinical and forensic psychologist, told “Good Morning America” she made the video with the intent to to raise awareness of moms and children being unaware of their surroundings.

She noted that she decided to film the video after hearing about the debate on the radio and based on conversations she’s had in her field.

“I wanted to make the video to empower people to say, trust your instinct, it’s okay if you don’t feel safe to not return your shopping cart,” she said.

Thousands of users have responded online to Dobson’s post. Some who disagreed with her views have said that not returning a shopping cart is rude while some others agreed with her saying they wouldn’t leave their kids in the car alone either.

Speaking to “GMA,” Nick Leighton, an etiquette expert and host of the etiquette podcast “Were You Raised By Wolves,” shared his perspective on why the video gained so much attention.

“People who don’t return their shopping cart are benefiting from everybody else doing the nice thing, which is returning their cart, because if nobody returns the carts then… it would be chaos at this parking lot,” he explained. “And so I think that’s also why this resonates is sort of like I’m doing the nice thing, and you’re not sort of doing your part.”

Dobson, who regularly posted videos covering topics of parenting, safety and crime among others, said she is glad her video has created awareness on safety.

“People didn’t watch the whole thing, but now it’s turned into such an important conversation,” she said. “And I’m so happy that people are talking about this.”

She also added that the comment section of her post has turned more into a conversation about safety and intuition.

“There are so many private messages of women saying, ‘I believe you, I trust you, I do the same thing, but I’m not going to leave a public message because I don’t want the retaliation,'” Dobson said.