Parenting ... so many fails ... all in one GO train trip

from:		Name Withheld by Request
to:		"Cindy (Cj) Smith"
date:		Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 3:39 PM
subject:		Re: My Niagara Falls Excursion experience....

Me, the wife, my kid (19 yrs old) and her friend got on the train at Oakville for 9:30 last saturday morning. We got on the second car from the cab car because it's close to the station in the falls.

When we went upstairs because the kids wanted a view, I was shocked to see that a group of parents had their SUV style strollers in the aisle. Six of them lined up effectively blocking about 6 quads and the aisle completely. UPSTAIRS. The first event was when the fare checkers came around. They asked politely, I might add for the people to move the strollers either downstairs or place then inside a quad since the car wasn't crowded. They explained patiently that this was a hazard and not allowed. Well one of the mothers exploded with the "I pay taxes and I know my rights" routine. They adamantly refused to move them because they weren't bothering anyone. The fare checker patiently explained again that in the case of an emergency, they are blocking escape routes. Of course they said that it won't happen. Then the fare checker said that if they didn't move them out of the way, they'd be escorted off the train at Burlington. This caused a stream of profanity directed towards them right in front of the children (who I'll get to). They did comply and bitched about it the entire time. They demanded his badge number and promised to get him fired. I showed them my badge and told them to call me if required (editor's note, this person works for the province in an official capacity). I wish I had my phone recording.

Next we got stuck at the Welland canal by a boat passing through. In that span of 35 minutes, their kids went from well-behaved kids oohing and ahhing at the landscape to a bunch of monkeys in the zoo. They ran all around the coach, up and down the stairs, and took turns seeing who could slam the bathroom door the hardest. The kids were using the floor to ceiling pole in the aisle to jump from seat to seat playing tag. One kind of tripped and fell into my wife's leg. When she mentioned what they were doing was not polite, the kids' mother came steaming down the aisle yelling at my wife to not talk to her kid that way. I mentioned that someone should. She grabbed the kid and stormed off.

Next, when we were actually crossing the canal, one little guy was looking out the window wondering what all that stuff was. About 8 or 9 years old. I described what he asked about and explained in a kid's way what they were doing. We were having a great time. Until another hell-mom came screeching down the aisle yelling at me to stop talking to her little boy. If I didn't stop, she was going to press the yellow bar and claim I was luring her kids. We were sitting back to back, so that would seem an awkward way to lure kids like that. I actually dared her to press the bar. When I said my kid's phone is recording this whole conversation (I was bluffing) she slunk off, calling me names and questioning my heritage. I said thanks for the footage and see you on youtube.

Anyway, she returned to her gaggle of hens and they continued to talk about us from their safe perch. I later learned that their men were downstairs playing cards in a quad totally ignoring the kids as they ran rampant.

You might wonder why we stayed there and that's because it was only 10 more minutes to the station, and since they thought we were recording, they calmed down and stayed away. The kids got bored with the rampage and eventually sat back down.

I can't imagine being around people with so few manners and so little respect for others. I watched them struggle to get the strollers down the stairs and out the door. I had no intention of helping in the slightest, where normally I'd be the first one to offer my help despite my bad knee and my bad hip. It never occurred to them that it's ok if you take the stroller in one trip out the door and the extra gear in another. They tried to get it all off the train at once. Those bars dividing the doors nearly foiled their plans.

OK rant over. Of all my trips on that train, that was the only bad experience and it was a doozey.