On the Sidewalk

Encounters from the streets, coming across a mother and a child throwing a temper tantrum, translated…

6:48, Friday evening, a mom who has her identification tag already smeared her makeup, her originally tied back ponytail, now fallen down, across her face, no longer tied up properly.  She squatted down, tried to adjust her position, so the new dress doesn’t feel too uncomfortable, while that camel colored purse she had, already, fallen, onto, the sidewalks.  She’d, raised her left arm, to smooth the strap of the backpack with the name of the preschool’s name on it with her arm.

Before my mother stood, a little boy crying, and he’d, mumbled things that nobody could, understand, slurred his speech, mom’s body became imbalanced, leaned forward, seemed to want to hear what the boy was saying to her, and for some unknown reasons, the child leapt suddenly, and my mother’s knees, hit the pavement, embraced that upset child into her arms, patted the child’s back.  And, the backpack and her purse on each of her shoulders are now, fallen off.

I was too far, to hear their, conversations, just, stood, dumbfounded at the turn of the corner, didn’t want to, intrude.

This was déjà vu to me.  Many years ago, when I’d started to, adapt to the paces of life as I’d returned back to the workforce, working at a new position, filled with, tons of challenges, and unpredictable things, and every day after work, I’d felt, totally, drained.  As I got home, even as I’d, reminded myself, to cherish the short time I had to spend with my children, but many a time, I’d always, gotten angered, by the tiny matters like brushing his teeth, bathing, and the like.

illustration from UDN.com

Afterwards I’d thought on the matter, actually, the children were, trying hard, to adapt too, they may have to face an entire day of strangeness during the daytime, may be trouble by matters they couldn’t quite make sense of, maybe, they were upset in school, and wanted to tell mom things, but, mom couldn’t…………

And so, when we can, finally be, together, not only us adults, but children also, carried a ton of the overflowing emotions, that none of us knew what to do with, and so, any tiny detail, can become, an outlet for the children.  At this moment, for both the mother and the children, even if we can’t understand what was happening, a hug should, do the trick, right?

A few minutes later, that loud wail from the sidewalks turned into, quieter sobbing, and, under the yellow lamplight, I saw the little boy, let go of his mother’s neck, patted her back, without making a single sound.  Like how his mother just did for him.  I can’t hear what they said to one another, but, as the boy turned and picked up the backpack and the purse, patted the dust and dirt off, I saw clearly, that the mother was, smiling then.

And so, these temper tantrums can come out of nowhere, one minute the kid was fine, then the next, s/he, goes OFF, in the public, and, normally, at this time, the adults would get into “conflict resolution mode”, try to make the kid stop crying, but the kid can, and the adults get angrier, angrier, angrier, because they also have these, bad feelings that are, roused up by the children’s tantrums, but we all need to take a few steps back, take that long breath, and, calm ourselves, before anything ELSE can be done, before we can, get to, the bottom of, why is my daughter/son so upset?