It's Easter Day and I'm out with Xiuxia, languishing and enjoying the comfortable silence between us as we each enjoy a nice cup of Java at Starbucks.
We've been here for the last 2 hours and for the last 2 hours I've been glancing up at times, from the e book on my phone, to see a little boy seated very quietly across his mother.
He had been sitting there minding his own business the entire time, his mother preoccupied with whatever is on her mini laptop, and him quietly there in the background.
So far I've seen him idling, reading a educational magazine, playing games on another laptop, flitting from one occupation to another, a classic sign of boredom and lack of motive.
The whole time his mother had been click click clicking away, blissfully ignoring the child and doing her stuff. Almost not a word passed between them for the entire time.
Is this what the modern parent child relationship had become?
I don't mean to judge but I can't help but shudder at the resigned aloofness of the child (were children ever aloof and that quiet back in our time?) and the lack of attention from the mother.