Parenting skills . . . or lack thereof

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Steve and I had a stroll around Central Park yesterday and then rode the subway back to our apartment. After the second stop, the conductor announced that a child had been separated from his parents at the previous stop and asked the parents to please come speak to the conductor. The train sat for a minute or two and the conductor repeated the announcement, stating again that the child had been left behind at the previous stop and would the parents please see the conductor. Finally a couple walked by with a small boy aged about three or four. They looked a bit confused, but not freaked out. The man was probably about 50. The woman was in her 30s. They were dressed well, like they were coming from work.

These were not the panicked, over-stressed parents I expected to see at the other end of such an announcement. I thought I'd see maybe very young parents. Or a single Mom or Dad. Or parents with several children who somehow, in the chaos of the station, lost a grip on a precious little hand. I mocked them to Steve as they strolled by, looking more like they were searching for their box seats at the opera than their lost child, and said our train waited for the next one to arrive with the missing child only to make sure the parents didn't disappear. But as our train slipped away, I wondered how on earth those parents got separated from their child in the first place.

Two parents, two children. Shouldn't that have been one child's hand per parent? Or one child per hand? The boy was only about four, so I assume his sibling was probably under 10. This is New York, for Pete's sake. The subway. Surely the parents weren't so busy with their smartphones that they weren't paying attention to their kids, right? Yeah, right. I think that's exactly what happened. Mom was on her phone. Dad was on his. They just expected the kiddies to stay by them. They got on the train. Kid #2 didn't. And, since they didn't even respond until the second announcement, I suspect they didn't even notice they were down a child until that point in time.

Whatever did happen, those parents should be thankful they were reunited safely with their child. I hope they hold tighter to his hand in the future because next time it might not end so well.

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