I Watched a Mother Hit Her Child and I Did Nothing

Attempting to understand the times when we are called to action

Photo by Andy Wang on Unsplash

Yesterday, in early evening, I took my eleven year-old daughter to a vaccination site in Times Square. I had already scheduled an appointment for the following afternoon at a nearby pharmacy, but then she would not be eligible to receive the city’s gift of a $100 debit card. She is terrified of getting shots, working herself into a tearful frenzy at every annual physical. I distracted her on the subway by telling her that the $100 would be hers to spend however she liked. She rattled on about wanting new batches of slime and the joy of buying make-up at Sephora, exposing the child-to-teen she was in the process of becoming, slime to squish in one hand, a fall palette of eyeshadow in the other.

We entered a fluorescently-lit lobby manned by two security guards who wordlessly pointed to a row of children and their mothers lined up against the wall in black chairs. The chairs faced the two elevators: one for anyone over the age of twelve, who did not have to wait to go upstairs, and one for the kids, who were to be brought up in small groups.

We sat. The mood was grim, so unlike the celebratory atmosphere of the site where I had my own first shot seven months earlier. We had waited — impatiently and…