When Did We Stop Caring About Children Not Our Own? Bus Stops & Mom Behaviors

I turn 52 next month. I've been a parent for over 14 years now. I've spent the last 10 walking my kids to and from the elementary school bus stop. Where we used to live, I was one of two parents who made the daily trip. In our new community, I am one of half-a-dozen or so parents who escort their little cherubs on and off the bus.

Yet, I remain the only parent who "parents" the kids whose parents aren't there. I'm the mom who reminds a child to zip a jacket or ask him where his jacket is when the weather turns cold. (Sometimes I even do the zipping.) I'm the mom who yells, "Nobody move until the bus stops completely" before the kids start swarming the morning bus. And I'm the mom who tells the kids, including my own, to get off the neighbor's lawn so he'll have something green come Spring.

The other moms are nice people. I enjoy speaking with them. But they don't engage anyone else's child but their own. (I even heard one mom mutter, "I don't care. He's not mine.")

There's no question in my mind that my behavior is rooted in my 1950s/1960s upbringing where every mom on my block parented every child on the block. That's what grown-ups did back then. It was part of the job.

But not today, not anymore. I suppose I do this a little out of fear. G-d forbid a child should slide under a bus wheel while on my "watch" -- how could I live with myself if that were to happen? Tell the cops it wasn't my job since it wasn't my kid?

So, I've accepted that this job is simply part of my overall karma. I am the bus stop monitor who zips jackets, and wipes noses, and keeps kids off the neighbor's grass. I will be out there, rain or shine, until my youngest no longer rides the elementary school bus. That's 3 years from now.

Will there be another mom to take my place when my job concludes? You tell me.