Now, to be fair I did not study the ways and methods of EVERY Mother in NY.  This is what I’ve seen.  Whether it be in my neighborhood, on the train, near work, on the East Side, in a restaurant, in a bathroom–this is what I’ve noticed.

Note: I don’t DO the politically correct thing like African American.  If you are in America I’m going to assume, safely, you are an american.  That’s going to make it easier to just name it as the whities, asian, black and those like me: half-breeds.  If you take offense, just don’t read anymore and you’ll be fine.

The mothers on the East Side have nannies.  These nannies are black, or asian, or hispanic.  Whether they are from Mexico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Columbia–and anywhere else they speak those foreign languages–some of them are nannies.  I’d like to add, they probably also make more than me per hour.

The mothers that have to take the trains are the incredible hulk ones.  they lift those strollers complete with diaper bags, baby, their purse and any other bag they have with them, and walk down those stairs like it’s nothing.  I’m terrified one day I’ll see one fall.  TERRIFIED.  But they all seem to be pro’s.  Which could possibly be confirmed by the 5 other children walking down the stairs next to them.  Often, I see a stranger helping the mothers lift the strollers and walk them down, or carry them to the top of the stairs, to ground level.  New Yorkers aren’t mean, they just can’t be bothered for the most part–or so I’ve noticed.  But they seem to help each other out.  Just as much as they seem to bitch each other out.

There are teen moms.  Teen mom’s will soon take over the planet unfortunately because there are so many of them.  There are young moms.  These mom’s look like they are in their early twenties.  Neither the teen or young moms can be bothered by their children without flipping out.  It is…constant.  By constant I mean, there is a constant form of “discipline” or lack-thereof that these teen/young mom’s are throwing at their kids.  These mothers ignore their screaming kid in the stroller on the train by putting their earphones in, closing their eyes and pretending to block it out, literally plugging their ears, and my favorite: yelling at the kid and covering their mouth or trying to shove some form of binki or bottle-thing in their face.  I never know what the kid wants, but I know that ignoring or yelling at them is not going to make them stop.  And many…many times I sit there and watch.  I just…stare.  I stare at the kid in amazement of their lung capacity and volume and the size of their tears can only be measured agains the obese man sweating next to them just from walking down the stairs to get to the train.  I stare in aw at the mother thinking…why are you a mom?

Did they choose this?  Were those kids planned?  For the most part, I’m going to simply guess “nope.”  I’m going to go with what it seems to me:  It seems to me they are bothered by their kids.  They don’t want to be parents, they don’t know how to speak to them, or discipline them–they don’t want to learn this either.  They have no patience of the children.  Their ways of speaking to them are including but not limited to (as I have noticed and experienced):

“shut up!”

“Don’t f*cking touch my bag”

“Sit still, or I’ll smack you”

“Don’t f*cking touch your sister or I’ll pop you one”

“I don’t have diapers so you’ll just have to sit in your own sh*t”

These are just the ones I can remember.  Today I had a lovely (not the sarcasm) experience with a young mom and her two young daughters.  i’m guessing they were perhaps 2 and 3.  These little girls were screaming and fighting with each other, bothering the whole train.  And the mother yelled “SHUT UP.” Loudly, for all of us on the train to hear.  Moments later the little girls were playing again, roughly and one went to try to hide under Mom’s bag.  The young mother had her earphones in, eyes closed, and was slumped over perhaps trying to take a nap and she was (perhaps) woken up by the little girls and yelled out “Stop it! Don’t f*cking touch my bag”  The little girls settled, again and then one pushed the other to the floor off the bench.  The mom opened her eyes again when the little girl was crying and screaming for her dad (who was not present) and the young mother yelled more telling her to get her “little black ass on the f*cking bench and stop playing”

When is it okay to step in?  It seems we all have our limits–mine approached.

Again, the girls started playing around and fighting over some toy.  The young mother opened her eyes grabbed the toy and started smacking the girls over and over on their arms and legs telling them to stop.  I stood up quickly saying “woah woah woah, you can’t hit them like that” The young mother stood up from the bench, shorter than me–most of them are–and she started telling me it wasn’t my business, and I needed to back off (or something) to which I immediately cut her off with “Stop Talking!  You can’t smack them like that, or *I* will smack you as though the hand of God came down and knocked some sense into you”  She rolled her eyes and put her hand up to my face as if to childishly say “talk to the hand” (remember that one?…from..Junior High?)  She said she could do whatever she wanted, their her kids and I corrected her and said something like “they may be yours now, but if you keep that up–they’ll be taken away from you”  She stood there and stared at me; glaring at me as the train came to a slow and approached my stop.  She told me I better watch myself–and before she could finish I said “Everyone is watching YOU now.” And I got off the train.

Everyone has an opinion on how to raise kids.  Everyone.  Everyone thinks they will do it better than whomever is doing it “wrong” according to them.  I was taught not to hit people smaller than you.  Only fight back, if it truly is self defense.  Stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.  And trust your instincts.

I’m positive I wasn’t the only one who wanted to say something.  I’m sure others wanted to and asked themselves the same questions I did “is someone gonna say something?”  or “does everyone else see this happening?”  or “when is it okay to step in and say something.”

All I know is, It’s not the first time I’ve said something, and it won’t be the last.