Just before I moved to Maine I was in a local shopping mall. A couple went y me with a little bot, maybe four, who was obviously exhausted and therefore cranky. To my horror, they told him to shut up or they would leave - and then they did. They left him screaming in the store while they went out to the main mall.

I took him by the hand and asked what was wrong. He stopped crying and cuddled up to me. When he was quiet, I went outside debating whether or not to call the police. The couple was out in the main mall waiting for this tiny child to come out.

Babies are kidnapped from shopping malls all the time. I could have walked him out another exit and been gone.

He walked hand in hand with me to his parents who were mortified that I had gotten involved. I spoke carefully and kindly to them about how tired the boy was just as they were. And about how fast he would grow up and not need them. The father picked the child up and seemed to have gottent he message. There was no hint that the boy was going to be punished for this.

I just do not understand.

On another occasion I saw a woman slap a two year old HARD becaus ethe baby was cranky and she wanted to try on clothes. She and her mother were shouting at this poor baby. At the register Grandma raised her hand to strike the child again. LOUD and CLEAR i announced "If you touch that child again I will call the police." She backed off fast and shrank from my glare. Then a number of women around joined in my warning but not before I spoke up.

Then we wonder why kids can get so screwed up.