We were going through Nordstrom’s store at Lloyd Center. As we came down the escalator a couple of young males, dressed in the latest street styles of pants and caps came into view. One of them was pushing a two-seat stroller, the kind with the seats in a single row as opposed to being side by side. The other male was walking alongside. At the top of the adjacent down elevator the men changed roles and the one who had been pushing the stroller headed alone down the escalator while the other one grabbed the handle bar on the stroller and swung it around so that the child in the front seat was now facing away from the first step. He then proceeded to walk backward down a couple of the moving steps. At the same time he lifted the stroller up while keeping the child in the front stroller balanced on the higher step while the child in the back seat was suspended in the air. The pusher was not willing to take an elevator; that would have been too much time. He showed no concern for the children’s safety.

Was one of them the father of these children, or were they each the fathers of one of the children? Or was neither one a father, just guys being ‘good guys’ who were taking the little guys out to the mall? Frankly, I think the kids were in the way today. The kids had no choice, and the young adults made all the wrong choices.

Lloyd Center near-mishaps were not yet over. As we walked near a display of dresses I almost stepped on a young girl who was laying on the floor while talking on her cell phone.

Two days earlier while having lunch at Grand Central Bakery a young toddler arrived near where I was sitting and she proceeded to pick up food from the floor. Her slightly older sister arrived on the scene in a minute or two later and removed what was left uneaten from her sister’s hand. I looked in the direction where I supposed the mother was, yet no one moved closer to the little girl until a woman (I cannot use the word ‘mother’) appeared. The first thing she did is put her cell phone away and then she reached down and shook the older child, while leaving the toddler to find her next discarded morsel on the floor.

I wanted to help, or say something, but I remained speechless and stayed out of the way.

What was the right thing to do? What was the cause of all three of these episodes? Was it the lack of good parenting or the lack of time to complete a given task that made these events so disturbing? How did any of us survive our childhoods?

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