By Eisa Ulen

Yesterday, as I walked with my husband and son to the park, I heard a sister from across the busy Brooklyn street. ?Come on!? she yelled and flipped her ponytail. ?Sh**!? Two things I knew before even looking her way: 1) This sister was a sister. 2) She was cursing her own child. I looked her way, and in one glance confirmed both assumptions were correct.

Last weekend I watched another mother release her son?s hand as they walked in front of a local supermarket. Since the child appeared to be about 4, I assumed they had some routine where he stopped at the mechanical horse to ride it before shopping. I made this assumption because, just a few feet past the horsey ride, cars were swinging into the parking lot at speeds fast enough to do a 4 year old great harm. But he didn?t stop at the 25-cent-a-ride old fashioned horse, or at the door to the supermarket. He kept running, just as another car pulled into the lot he still ran, blissfully unaware of the danger ahead, and I pulled my stroller to the side to reach for him.

?Amir!? his mother cried, freezing me with the screaming pitch of a mother in fear, and, luckily, freezing her son, who instantly stopped, swirled, his face pleading open in an O of fear. I reached for him as this mother hurried forward, and he twisted from me and ran into her arms. Instead of hugging him close, checking him, even softly scolding him for running into the street, she beat him…

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