Something that I have been noticing about society as a whole with regard to raising children is that in our society children are raised by their parents and only their parents. It is possible for family members to have a hand in raising children as well as hired help, but for the most part parents are the sole child rearing participants. It has come to my attention in my mere 20 years of living that some parents just do not treat their children well in public. As a society are we supposed to simply turn a blind eye and say it is his/her child and we can't tell him/her how to raise the kid?

Walking from the bus-stop at 8th and Amity toward the Waterfront I saw a woman scream at her daughter who was not, in her mind, walking fast enough to keep up with her. It should be noted that the daughter was all of 4 years old and the mother clearly walked much too fast for her daughter to stay on pace. Her daughter would not, as a result, hold her mother's hand because she kept lagging behind and this infuriated the mother even more. "HOLD MY FUCKIN' HAND YOU LITTLE BITCH!" Not even remotely an exaggeration, the mother yelled that at her daughter. Now as a passer-by, as a citizen, as woman, as a human being, do I have any right to intercede and scold the mother on her behavior? NO! Society dictates that I, not having any relation to this woman, have no right in telling this mother what she is doing blatantly wrong. Because this woman is not physically abusing her child, I have no right to step in.

Another example, I was walking along the beach in Delaware where a 4 year old child was standing in the middle of the sand between the row of houses and the ocean wailing. She was simply crying her eyes out. Her mother was standing along the row of houses yelling at her daughter to "get your [4 year old girl] ass over here. No one cares that you want to build a sandcastle, you don't matter!" The mother proceeded to yell that everyone else wanted to go get dinner and that her desire to build a sandcastle was completely unreasonable and selfish. The mother cursed some at the girl and continued to yell at her. The mother then proceeded to storm over to her daughter, who the entire time continued to cry, wail, and scream almost as loudly as her mother was yelling at her. The mother grabbed her daughters arm and began dragging her across the sand. Again, what am I as an innocent by stander allowed to do in this situation? And more importantly what should we, as a society, be expected to do when witnessing situations such as those?

It is my firm belief that as a society we have come a very long way in accepting parenting into everyday life. Men are now able to be care-takers and women can work and bring their children to work with them. Companies have built in Father-Daughter days in the work schedule. Parenting is absolutely accepted into everyday- public life. And yet, we have not gotten past the inability to tell someone that s/he is treating a child inappropriately. I long for the day in which we have that ability, and perhaps when that day comes all the stresses that Warner feels in being the perfect mother will vanish.