I was sitting at the subway platform recently, waiting for my morning train, when I noticed a little boy sitting next to me playing with a toy car. He was pushing it along the armrests of the platform seating, and being scolded by his mother.
“Don’t you dare drop that car!” she told him. “If you drop that toy on the floor, it’s going to stay there!”
From the tone of her voice, I knew that this mom meant business. She was clearly annoyed with the boy and, apparently, he had a habitual problem of dropping things on the floor. At least that’s the conclusion I came to from hearing her yell about how he “always drops his toys on the floor.” What’s the big deal? That’s what kids do, they drop things, or worst, fling them at you.
But I secretly hoped that he wouldn’t drop the toy. I feared what would happen if he dropped it. What would she do? Was she really going to leave the toy on the floor? Would she throw it onto the subway tracks to try and teach him a lesson? Or would she hit him? These were the thoughts racing through my head as I sat there pretending to be interested in my iPad. Ironically, I was reading a book on French parenting, “Bringing Up Bebe,” by Pamela Druckerman. According to this book, a French parent would tell the child once not to drop the toy, ask if the child understood, and expect him not to drop it.
As luck would have it (or just plain-old carelessness of a child), he dropped the toy car. Ugh! The mother yelled and said, “You see! That’s why you’re not getting it back!”
I felt sympathy for the little boy as he cried and begged his mother to give him the toy. He didn’t yell back or kick or scream. He simply asked her, through his tears and puppy-dog eyes, if he could get it from the floor. An older woman who was sitting beside me picked up the toy car and handed it to the boy. She was on my side and she, too, was secretly cheering the boy on. He immediately grabbed it from the woman and soon after, his mother snatched it and threw it back on the floor, where it had originally fallen. This was definitely a case of mean mommy.
I wanted to tell her that she was being mean and cruel. “He’s just a baby!” I wanted to shout at her. But I decided to mind my own business. The older woman next to me and I exchanged looks of annoyance toward the mother. The mother obviously believed in tough love. Or, maybe, the kid has a serious problem of dropping toys on the floor and she had had enough. The truth is, the mother was trying to teach her son a lesson, even if it was a harsh one. Maybe she wants him to have a higher regard for his things, or maybe she’s tired of him losing toys all over the city (which no doubt, us parents work hard to pay for).
As the boy and his mother got on the train, I felt sad for him. But, like most children, he’ll probably forget the trauma of losing his toy by lunchtime, and hopefully the lesson will last much longer than that.
