I know this won't make me popular but I am one of those annoying mothers whose children never had tantrums and therefore I don't understand them.
To be
clear: I’m not talking about childhood exuberance. I have a friend who’s always
hugely embarrassed by her three small boys behaving ‘badly’ when they are just having
fun. Of course they cry when rough becomes tumble
but tantrums? Never. And she’s
absolutely aware of their activity, apologising to other walkers / passengers/
diners who might be affected.
But what’s
almost worse than the toddler tantrum is a thing I call parental oblivion.
I was on a
train to London the other day when a lady with a small boy joined the carriage. She appeared
to be going to work. She was totally immersed in her iPhone while the little lad,
about six years old, wandered up and down the commuter train chatting to people
- all heading to work - whether they liked it or not. Mum barely looked up for
half an hour.
After a while I started to
think she had just been standing next to the boy on the platform and wasn’t in
fact his mother at all.
I was reading
through a report when he first came over to me. ‘What’s that?’ he said,
pointing to my travel mug. I smiled. ‘It’s a mug.’
‘Why’s it
got a lid?’
‘So you
can take it with you without spilling your drink.’
‘Can I
have it?’ I glanced up at his mother who was oblivious. ‘No,’ I said. Still
smiling. ‘I’ve got my coffee in it.’ He
went to pick it up but, grin slightly fixed now, I got there first.
‘You
should share,’ he scowled. I told him you shouldn’t share drinks with strangers on
a train. He picked up my handbag and started looking through it.
‘I don’t
think your mummy would like you to do that,’ I said in a slightly louder voice.
No reaction. ‘But
what’s inside?’ he asked. ‘I want to see. Mummy lets me.’
I won’t bore
you with how much more of this followed but eventually, rather than throw
myself on the tracks, I stood up, took his hand, prodded his mother and said,
‘I’m sorry to bother you but I wondered if you noticed this small child by any
chance when you got on the train? He seems to be completely alone so I’m going
to take him to lost property.’
She looked
at me, utterly discombobulated, said, ‘He’s with me,’, told him to sit down and
went back to her iPhone. Three minutes later he was bored and off down the aisles
again and she didn’t bat an eyelid.
I moved
carriages. It was either that or abduct him.
