On behalf of a Metro-North Conductor

[MrInsecure]

As a general rule, I feel sympathy (or perhaps empathy would be the better word) towards people who work crappy jobs and get abuse from people. I know what it's like to be on the wrong end of a stupid customer's outrage, since "the customer is always right." Of course, anyone who knows anything about the service industry knows this is completely false and anyone who believes it hasn't met humanity yet.
That's why, on behalf of the poor conductor on the 5:51 PM Grand Central to Poughkeepsie Metro-North train, I now tell this story.
It started with a woman and her child, as many of these stories do. You see, some people are not quite qualified to be parents, despite their reproductive abilities. This was one of those people.
She was average height, maybe a bit older looking than most mothers with children that age. Her hair was dyed red, and she wore clothing that one might have seen on Fran Prescher in "The Nanny." Her child, a girl who appeared to be about five or six years old, a blond-haired child (further emphasizing the woman's unnatural hair color) kept getting out of her seat and running down the hall. Annoying, perhaps, but not too unusual.
Of course, at this point the conductor, a middle-aged man who truly looked like a conductor should look, came up and asked the woman to calm her child down. The exchange went as follows (paraphrasing a bit):

Conductor: Ma'am, is that your child?
Woman: Yes, she is.
Conductor: Well, I'm going to have to ask you to take control of her, she's bothering the other passengers.
Woman: (taking off glasses to emphasize point) Well, I think she would listen more if you were the one who told her to sit down.
Conductor: Ma'am, if she's your child then she's your responsibility.
Woman: But I really do think she'd listen to you more.

So this went on for a bit, eventually, the poor, bewildered conductor asked the girl to sit down, and guess what? She listened. I swear to God.
Intrigued by this exchange, I continued to listen. With my appearance as an apathetic, iPod-fixated teenager, I was able to listen to some of the exchange between this woman and her child. To make a long story short, this woman was completely unable to control her child; I swear she was actually debating with her, like an equal.
Children should not raise children, and we shouldn't have to put up with overgrown toddlers. Mr. Conductor on the 5:51 PM Metro-North from Grand Central Station to Poughkeepsie, I salute you.

[Becks]

(further emphasizing the woman's unnatural hair color)

Off topic, but, even though I dye my hair red on occasion, I have a good chance of having children who might have any hair color.

[CorDarei]

reminds me of a child on a filght i was on recently.

mother wasn't paying attention to it, letting it kick the seat all flight long.
mother wasn't paying attention to it, it was walking up and down the aisle of the plane, mostly stopping and using me as a resting point (putting its grubby little hands on my legs).
got to a point to where i looked back, giving the mom the evil eye and pointing down to her child. shame the mother probably wouldn't understand english, so i didn't berate her

[LemonZest]

Off topic, but, even though I dye my hair red on occasion, I have a good chance of having children who might have any hair color.

Not to mention that I have naturally red hair (which I now color to hide the silver, but that's beside the point) and I have one blonde-haired, two brown-so-dark-it's-nearly-black-haired, and one already mostly-grey-but-formerly-medium-brown-haired offspring.

[Hello Kitty]

saw a relation of them on a flight

Totally reminds me of the time our plane was *touching down* and some kid was running down the aisle. All stewards and stewardesses were strapped in their seats, and the stewardess said really forcefully to the kid SIT DOWN, and the kid ran the other way (hopefully to their seat). I was like ?? where is the parent??

[rerant]

On the topic of the red hair thing, red hair is a recessive trait (and more than anything a gene mutation) that doesn't always come from the parents.
Case in point: I was born with red hair and my dad is blonde and my mother a brunette. I got it from my grandfather.

But on the topic of the post: I hate that this woman would make the driver do the parenting.
She was clearly trying not to be the "bad guy", when being a parent sometimes requires that.
Not only that, but how many times have people in customer service (or just in general) been ripped on for "telling someone how to raise their kid" by asking the child to settle down/stop running/stop juggling knives/spitting fire in a crowded room, etc.

I love my supervisor's response to people when they bitch at him for asking their kids to settle down. Usually the kids are playing with, or clibing on, or swinging metal gates that close the cash lanes.

"Well, since I'm the health and safety rep for this department I would be the one who would have to respond if you son/daughter fell off that gate and cracked his/her head open. So I figure since I'm already here I might as well do my job without having to work around a pool of blood."

That's not verbatim, but you get the idea.

[Kogarashi]

Not only that, but how many times have people in customer service (or just in general) been ripped on for "telling someone how to raise their kid" by asking the child to settle down/stop running/stop juggling knives/spitting fire in a crowded room, etc.

Tell me about it. And then there are the kids who are damaging merchandise or roughousing in/on/around something they shouldn't (or shutting their sibling in the near-empty ice locker - ugh), and you can't tell which of the several customers around is the mom to talk to. And then get yelled at by some random lady in a different line for asking her "angels" to stop banging the merchandise against the display case, and to tell the mom next time.

Not that I've had that happen to me, no.

I got the impression from the OP that the child really wouldn't listen to her mom, and the mom probably realized that, hence asking the local "authority figure" to do it instead. Doesn't excuse it at all, since parents should never lose that control with their children.

[Hello Kitty]

Once my husband told a kid to be careful/watch where he was running, as he almost knocked over our much smaller child. The mom totally got on his case about it "why didn't you talk to me instead?" But how was he to know who the mom was, when she was nowhere near her kid? I had to drag him away from that argument, no point in getting thrown out of a place for that.

I do sympathize with parents of kids that don't listen. I am one myself, they will sometimes just completely ignore what I'm saying. Sometimes I pull the "the (worker) man is going to scold you!" (doesn't always work though). I was forced to take them with me to Sears to buy a new washing machine, just signed up a Sears CC and it wouldn't let me buy online yet. I interrupted a saleslady and a couple asking a million questions about some product "is there any other salesperson here?!" Since I knew exactly what I wanted to buy, she abandoned the couple and did the sale for me. All the while, the two terrors are running around playing with the washing machines/dryers (remind me to never buy a floor model). It is very hard sometimes being a parent of two toddlers.

Before I had kids, I used to be horrified when I saw a kid having a tantrum in public. (Oh my gawd, can't they control their kid??) Now I just laugh because it's not me. (Ha ha, I'm glad it's you and not me!)

[zzapp the witch]

As an advocate of public spanking, I rarely have to scold my children. But then, I talk to them and they know what I expect of them.