A PRAM ON THE TRAM
The tram was a new-ish and welcome asset to the area, but already graffiti defaced one of the signs? Why did youngsters do this? Maybe the scene below holds an answer?
I was seated on the left, near the front, of a fairly empty carriage on the metro, otherwise known as the tram. A young woman got on with a child in a pushchair. He was about 3 years old. She manoeuvred the buggy past me, right up to the front, so the boy was close to, and facing, a wall of darkened glass and metal. The hood of the pushchair was also up around his head, cutting off any visibility to the sides. The woman dropped heavily down on to a seat behind him and across the aisle from me.
We set off and after a few moments the little one started swinging both legs, backwards and forwards. The buggy started to rock with the motion. Well a child has got to do something for entertainment? But then there was a sad development. “F--k off! Will you stop it!” the young woman, presumably his mother, admonished. If the swear words had been said humourously it might not have been too bad. Not a good example, of course, but they could have been spoken affectionately. But they weren’t. They were said in a bad-tempered way. This was happening mid-morning in an ordinary suburb. Something here was wrong.
Now the child, wanting to see, pushed the chair hood back so he could look out of the window. But instantly his mother pushed up the hood. She pushed it up hard, and back over his head. “F--king stop it!” she told him.
She began to study her phone. I looked out of the window on my side. Then there was the click and hiss of a small can being opened. I was now looking forward. I saw the child reach back, around the side of the hood. Between his fingers he held a quaver, or some such small snack. His little hand offered it to his mother. “I don’t want it. You eat it,” she responded. But she didn't say this kindly or coaxingly. She said it bluntly and dismissively. He took back the offering, disappearing again from view.
Our journey continued. She hawked up some heavy-sounding phlegm. And then she hawked up some more. It sounded like a variation on machine-gun-fire. But it was not a crime to have catarrh, nor to bring it up noisily and swallow it. What might have made an angel weep, though, was that she said nothing kind to the child. She had no chat for him at all. Nothing playful. No love. What hurt, mean place had she got herself into? What would free her?
And then the next thing happened. A woollen wrap slipped from his knees on to the floor. She reached over and picked it up. “That’s the last time I do that,” she told him. As if to check that I had seen this last reproof, the boy peered round the hood in my direction, showing me his pale unhappy face. And all this time he didn’t say a word. He only made some muted sounds.
Some more time passed. He swung his legs again. The pushchair rocked again. “F-king stop it!” she shouted. He stopped it. The pushchair stopped it. I looked across at her. She had an open packet of tobacco in her lap and was carefully rolling a cigarette. My stop was coming up. It was my turn to stop it. I rose from my seat and turned towards the door. Just as I was passing her she murmured, “I’m going to go mad in a minute.”
That was what happened, as accurately as I can recall it. And what of it? Well, at the start, when the woman first swore at the child, I felt annoyance. Here was a disturbance. But as the journey continued, it became more remarkable. The mother's behaviour kept happening, and it was all of a piece. She was consistently awful to the boy.
Why didn't I say something? Well, I haven’t brought up kids myself, nor worked with them. And a male doesn't usually intervene to tell a woman how to treat her child. But I could have said something. In retrospect perhaps I should have. It only takes for the good to do nothing, for evil to triumph, as the saying goes, if that's not too dramatic? Or at least I could have sent up a prayer. I didn't think of that at the time. I did, though, feel I should do something. Otherwise the episode would be forgotten, leaving nothing behind but a disagreeable sense that we were going to the dogs. So, although it took a little effort to bring out a notebook and a pen and begin to write, that is what I did.
But what's the point of writing up someone else's misery and bad behaviour? Well, I didn’t do it to point a finger at the mother; I omitted identifying details. Rather, it was to witness to what was happening then, in October 2021, in a northern English city. I don't see why Manchester would be worse than other places, so this behaviour must be happening elsewhere in society. This account was an attempt to make it visible.
One glimmer of light might be the woman's quiet comment about going mad. She said it just as I passed her. So perhaps she was trying to admit to a stranger that there was a problem? And you have to admit a problem before you can solve it. And maybe she was, in a way, asking for help?
By Steve Burrows
