Recently I was at Trader Joe’s and as I walked around the store, I kept passing the same woman. She was pushing a cart with a little girl in its seat. I guessed the girl to be around 3 or 4. The woman was talking on her cell phone the entire time I saw them. I heard the little girl calling, “Mommy!” over and over again. The woman kept talking on her cell. I heard the woman say, “That’s stupid!” into her phone. The little girl aped her, “Das Stupid! Das Stupid!” The woman kept talking on her cell.

 

I’m not sure if I’ve ever shared my thoughts on the rise of the need for attention in today’s youth. I posture that it’s based on their being among the first generation to have been raised by parents with cell phones. I think the parents’ obsession with talking to anyone but their children resulted in neglect. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen crying children being ignored by their caregivers, while the so-called adults gabbed away on cell phones. It’s become so common, I don’t think most of us even notice it anymore. Now that those once neglected children have grown into young adults, they seem to be forever seeking the attention they were deprived of in childhood. Personally, I don’t think they’ll ever get it back. And that’s pitiful.

 

Back at Trader Joe’s, I heard the little girl again yelling, “Mommy! Mommy!” The woman walked away from the cart, cell phone seemingly glued to her ear, saying loudly into the phone, “This is important!” At that very moment, a gentleman around my age walked straight up to the woman, looked her in the face and said, “You know what else is important? That little girl.” As he said it, he pointed to the abandoned child sitting alone in the stray cart. My eyes grew big and I was sporting a grin so severe I thought my face would crack. I looked to the man’s smiling wife, who was standing nearby. She gave me a head nod and I gave her two thumbs up.

 

I’d like to tell you the yakety-yak woman actually heard the gentleman, and that she put her phone away and actively cared for her child. I’d like to tell you that when they exited the store, mother and daughter were talking to each other. But I can’t report any of that as fact, as none of it happened. After the gentleman spoke to the neglectful mom, she kept right on talking into her cell. As she was leaving the store (at the same time as I), she was still on the phone. Even in the parking lot, that little girl was crying, “Mommy! Mommy!” It seemed the child was heard by everyone in the vicinity. Everyone, that is, except the one person she so desperately wanted to reach.

 

Pitiful doesn’t begin to describe that situation.

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