bring the child in, for the love of God!

[julfunked]

i just witnessed what must be a form of child abuse. i see from my reception desk that there is a mother coming up the ramp with a stroller. instead of strolling the kid in with her into the building, she parks the stroller outside and proceeds to walk in by herself. she is dropping something off for her husband, she says. ok, so this is going to be one of those run-in errands that will take a couple of seconds, i think. however, even a couple of seconds is too cold to stay outside in this weather. oh, but the woman was not done. she asks me where she can get a cup of coffee in the building. at this point, she asks me if i can watch the stroller from my desk while she goes and gets that cup of coffee. i ask her if she would like to bring the stroller in. heck, i will even go get the kid while she gets her coffee. no, she says, it will be fine thus rejecting the last chance that she had for any sort of motherly redemption.

it is gloomier and colder today than it has been for the last couple of days. there is frost on parts of the sidewalk this morning. the drafts of wind that come in as people open and close the front doors are freezing. and, yet the kid had to wait there. she/he is probably too young to walk, so i suppose that it would be useless to encourage the child to run away from the nest. perhaps, i should have berated the mother for being a horribly insensitive mother who is actually bordering on being cruel even. or, maybe i should have some kidnap-the-baby plan in order to save his/her life from further traumas.

god, why can't people be good to their children, especially when it is so damn cold?