Lesson #31-Hold on to your children

No one said that having children would be easy. They require constant supervision, they make a lot of unnecessary noise. Hell, most of the time you don't even know what it is that they want. Nevertheless, they are also bundles of joy and are your responsibility, the requirements of which seem to vary from person to person. I don't have children myself, but I am going to go on a whim here and assume that their safety should be your number one priority. I'm going to keep going - go on a another whim and say that the subway is probably not the safest place for a child to be, especially when their parent isn't paying enough attention.
It was a pretty uneventful day and I was ready to pass it off as just that. You know, it's true what they say. Things will happen when you least expect them to. Well I guess I really wasn't expecting anything, because I was able to witness a rather entertaining chain of events. It all started when a young mother boarded the Orange Line, child by her side. The train was pretty packed. She found a seat and sat down. Her child remained standing, holding on to the mothers knees. For the most part, the subway operators are able to operate the train so that the ride turns out a smooth one. However, you do get the occasional nascar driver turned subway operator, in which case, it really is best to hold on...at all times. Since a little child isn't capable of holding on, the mother should have been gripping for dear life, because our operator was on fire. Every stop consisted of a loud screech, followed by the synchronized side to side of the passengers, recovering from the sudden halt.
For the first two stops, the mother was doing a pretty good job of almost not letting her child shoot across the train. On the third, she was too busy looking at her phone. The other passengers, having already gotten used to the roughness of our operator braised themselves and tightened their grips as we approached Downtown Crossing. The mother did not. Her child did not shoot across like I thought he might, but he definitely flew for a good section of the seating area to the "Oh my Gods!" of the worried mother and the others. The child was shocked and crying, but he was alright. I don't know. I just don't know.
So there you have Lesson #31. Simply put, hold on to your child at all times, or they might literally fly away from you.