Subculture: Unfit Parents' Club

You have ALL been there. You are cruising the aisles of Target, Wal Mart, or your local supermarket, and you find yourself gravitating away from Aisle 10 due to the horrible racket coming from the other side of the shelving unit. You don't know what started it, you don't know who it involves. All you know is that you can do nothing about it, and to keep your sanity you have to keep as far away from it as possible.

Yes, I am talking about the crying baby being ruthlessly ignored by it's mother, who is too busy talking on the phone, or looking through mini skirts to pay any attention to the blobby set of vocal cords that is quickly growing painfully hoarse.

It is situations like this that make you want to stay away from Target, Wal Mart and any public store with particularly echoey acoustics. Yet we all must occasionally patronize one or more of these places. And now you know why iPods were invented.

Earlier this evening on a particularly excrutiating ride on the B Line, a member of the UPC (Unfit Parents' Club) showed us all that no matter how long it takes to get home, and how often the T shuts down unexpectedly, or how many Red Sox fans can be crammed against you, it can always be worse. There could be a crying baby being ignored. How naive we all can be sometimes. Remember the Target acoustics and how annoying it can be to browse through knock-off designer blouses with a crying baby in the vacinity? Just keep in mind, there is always another side of the store to retreat to when things get heavy. There is no where to hide on the T.

Just try to escape...

As we entered the T and saw the adorable blob of smiliness, I noticed that it was holding a T-mobile Sidekick cell phone. Adorable, right? Awwww, it's so cute thinking it can operate a complicated electronic device. How wrong I was. As soon as the device was taken from the baby, a sound of anguish and horror filled the T, that absolutely no one could ignore....except for it's mother. She looked to be about 18 years old, and was in desperate need of making a phone call, or I hoped she was, otherwise she was causing her baby to scream completely needlessly. Around them was a crowd of people bunched together, hovering over the tiny stroller, and my thoughts were as follows:

"Pay attention to your baby. You have given her nothing to distract herself with,
you won't touch her, and she is frightened by the giant mass of strangers staring at
her due to the screaming that she has been given permission (by you) to continue."

Meanwhile, my friend had inserted his earbuds, and was zoning to some tunes to drown out the din. I was so uptight, I hadn't the strength, nor the wherewithall to do the same, or even to take a seat when it became available. All I could do was watch, and hope something would change.

The crying went on. And on and on. Finally I looked over when the noise had subsided to find the unsurprising image of the baby once again playing with the cell phone. Everytime it was seized again, the hoarse crying began again, and my thoughts were ammended.

"You are raising a child addicted to flashing things that only you should
have access to. In essence you are giving her the idea that she is allowed to have
anything she wants if she cries hard enough. You laugh at her when she throws
tantrums, and she doesn't change. You also figure that since you are the mother
and supposedly have control, everyone around you should suffer as much as you.
But really, all you have control over is the level of irritation being exhibited by the
other passengers. You have NO control over your child. Get ready to be ruled by a brat
who will grow into a rebellious teen and make similarly bad decisions that will lead you to
being the 36 year-old grandmother of another bratty baby that will annoy everyone."

Now, I know she couldn't have made the conscious decision to have this child. Because the evidence that I was able to witness showed that she had no interest in putting forth a little lady into the world full of grace and generosity. And really who would decide to have a baby for the purpose of making it into a needy little brat who you barely pay attention to? No one. Or no one with sense. And really, it was the lack of sense that likely led to the conception of this, admittedly cute, devil's child. So I am not going to go on a tangent about the accesibility of condoms, or the power of saying no. There is no sense in infusing logic into the situation.

You can't really use logic with this one either

My favorite part of all of this was the lack of concern that the UPC member showed for the staring passengers' comfort. I can't fathom having that little care for other people. Such little regard for strangers who are judging you,

(AKA this girl)

definitely shows a lack of regard for your child. And really for yourself.

Side note: just looked up movies about teen pregnancy and a guy on a forum suggested Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection. Props. Mega props.

On the final bit of steam that I have left regarding this topic, I would like to mention that the UPC member's pet name for her child was, "Fea," which in Spanish, means "ugly girl." That would be cute coming from someone who has all her other ducks in a row. This girl's ducks were wandering around the room with no regard for order.