To the woman in the white hat with the cane: Thank you for being brave enough to say what we were all thinking

"Shut up... Shut UP... WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP!?!?"


Eh, what I heard on the 86th Street crosstown bus tonight wasn't anything unusual in New York City. People are bound to get annoyed at constantly being around other humans in such close quarters. But what soon followed made my stomach lurch, and brought tears to my eyes.


I started to hear a child cry, then someone standing in the aisle of the bus shifted and I was able to turn my head to my left and clearly see that the probably early-20s-year-old woman was screaming "Shut up" to her son, who looked to be about 5 years old.


It only got worse from there.


As children often do, the child made the "mistake" of taking an innocent swing at his mom, who was bending forward from her seat on the bus to get her face closer to his and pacify him by screaming "SHUT UP."


In response, she HIT. HIM. BACK. Nevermind that this display of child abuse was on a public bus, SHE REPEATEDLY slap-hit her child over and over while telling him to "shut up, just shut the f*uck up! You stupid! SHUT UP!"


I could see people taking note of the situation, and saw plenty of raised eyebrows, but no one, including me, said anything. I don't know what everyone else was thinking, but I can tell you what I was thinking: If this woman is pissed off and perfectly fine hitting a defenseless child, what the hell would she do to me if I said something and put myself right smack in her business? Though I can be honest with myself and say that I was caught up in self preservation, that in no way excuses my doing nothing. That said, I can't see this intense weight of shame going away anytime soon.


By this point, the bus had slowed down to Lexington Avenue, and this person got up, yanked up her kid up out of his seat and gave him a sharp shove forward by the back of his head.


That was enough for the woman wearing a white knit cap and carrying a cane sitting across from me in the front of the bus to say what we were all thinking.


"Please stop hitting that child," she said softly, but firmly, which - no surprise - unleashes a spout of profanities from this woman, including "don't stick your f*cking nose in my business. That's MY child, bitch" and the even more shocking "Did you see he f*cking hit me first."


Ummm... where do you think that child got the idea that hitting was OK? And what may be even worse - what if he grows up and still thinks hitting is OK? Will he in turn hit his child? His wife?

After the horrible woman made an even bigger scene yelling at the woman in the white hat who was brave enough to stand up for that child - screaming profanities all the way down the steps of the bus - I caught the eye of that woman across from me and we exchanged a raised-eyebrow look. Though I am ashamed to admit that I didn't have the courage to stand up for that child, I definitely wanted to make sure that her bravery was acknowledged, so I thanked the woman in the white hat.

Then, silently to myself, I thanked God that there are people like her and continued to pray that that child will be OK and will grow up to be nothing like his mother.