Every day by Everyone

“Stop showing your ass,” the young mom hissed through closed teeth. 
She slapped a fat young wrist and an older woman in a navy caftan frowned. 

    Motherhood requires tenderness when no one has ever been tender toward you. 

I wanted to give her my email and imagined replying to her outreach like this:

    Hi, I was a single mother before and it was hard. If you ever need someone to talk to….

But I just looked on. Then I thought:

    You hit because your mom hit you.  Did you ever stop to think why?

Then I imagined a subway brawl on YouTube.

“They don't care if you have a baby.” She shoved her stroller into a woman in headphones. “They don't care.”

The headphones-lady growled at the tattooed mother with tight jeans without a man. “You keep doing that and you'll get slapped one of these days.”

    But this mother (girl) was getting slapped every day by everyone.