The other day, I was on the train to work. It was around 8am – peak hour – and the train was packed.
Sitting on the seats near the doors to the carriage – you know, the seats that are clearly marked for elderly and disabled passengers – was a mother and her young son.
The little boy must’ve been about four years old, and he spent the entire journey running up and down the length of these seats, screaming, and knocking into other passengers – some of who were elderly – who were forced to stand.
When he wasn’t doing this, he was swinging off the poles and repeatedly opening the doors in between carriages.
At one stage, he even leaned towards his mother’s face, coughed, and then proceeded to laugh at her. She rewarded him with a kiss on his forehead.
People were getting visibly fed up and frustrated, glaring at her, silently imploring her to do something – anything – that would put an end to her son’s bad behaviour.
But she did nothing. She literally sat back and indulged her rowdy child with silence, as he continued to be disruptive to everyone around him.
I know parenting is hard, and I know most parents are doing the best that they can. But surely a simple “sit down” was in order here?
I probably would have been able to turn a blind eye to it if this was a one-off incident, but I’ve noticed behaviour like this seems to be becoming more and more common, with many parents simply refusing to draw a clear line when it comes to discipline.
Top Comments
Demeter, from reading this article the thought processes I continue to explore is that there are people in this world and/or community that continue to judge others without fully understanding other people’s circumstances. It is narrow minded people like this that does not help situations like what you have written about.
“Back in my day” or “when I was young” cannot be an argument. Times have changed, both parents have pressure to work, most families do not have the luxury of having one parent stay at home part time or full time. With this added pressure means that there are added layers, some days all some parents are hoping for is to survive the day unscathed and hope that tomorrow is a better day.
So instead of pigeon holing “most parents”, how about support and give kind gestures to parents that may be in need because they are trying to survive. The saying is “it takes a village to raise a child” and this cannot be anymore true to this day, belittling and saying that parents are afraid of parenting just encourages the feeling of disconnection to their already hard worlds.
Pre becoming a parent, I had a similar view. I have since been blessed with being a parent, with an incredibly strong, independent and wilful child. And she blessed to be in perfect health, without having any conditions that would interfere with her abilities to take instruction. Every parents situation is different, every child's situation is different, as would have been the author's experience of being parented, though not of parenting. Unless all the factors, child, and parent are identical there is absolutely no guarantee the child is going to respond the way you would expect therefore it is futile to expect the parenting the author received would apply to the child in this story. There's various other things I would comment about in the story, but I don't believe in passing judgement when I don't understand the full situation. What I do find, is that someone who is a parent is better able to understand my challenges "disciplining" my child, than someone that doesn't have kids. As any parent would know, there's a cardinal rule - you don’t judge other parents because you dont know what they are going through. You help if you can.