I join the smallish number of passengers on the 7 o’clock bus home from town, among them a family with three young children – dad right at the back with the two toddlers, mum trying to pacify a fretful baby in a double buggy at the front.
Soon the middle child starts to wail – he wants to go to mum. The baby joins in.
Suddenly dad comes down the bus, carrying the wailer. He threatens to get off: I just can’t deal with it Sue*
She hands him the baby & packs him off back to the back. The toddler, having got his wish, goes quiet.
Not for long. Now he wants to go back to the back.
Soon all three children are wailing.
I am not the only passenger who thinks we’ll all be wailing soon.
We reckoned without the bus driver, a married man approaching middle age. He stops the bus & suggests that mum might like to move to the back: So you’re all together, like. There’s nothing in the pram, is there?
Mum accepts the suggestion. Peace descends as the bus proceeds on its way.
As I turned back to my paper I heard dad say: What do you think of that, Sue?
They weren’t bad parents, just very short on resources, monetary & otherwise. Their only tactic to quieten the toddler was to insist (over & over again) that it was important, for safety’s sake, to sit down on the bus. If he wouldn’t stay in his seat he would have to be strapped into the buggy.
If only there were always someone around to teach such a deft lesson.
*Names have been changed
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