Why I insist on riding Metro Transit with my preschooler

In the beginning, I was absolutely terrified of an overcrowded Metro Transit bus.

I could see the Route 6 was packed, as usual, when it pulled to our stop one Wednesday evening last year. I remember the driver using his hydraulic kneel to lower the bus, like a real gentleman, inviting my then 2-year-old to hop aboard. His gesture relieved some of the stress I felt about riding the bus with a toddler. These were the early days of our mass-transit experiment, and I hadn't noticed many children on the bus before.

A second later, I was paying the fare when I heard the most fearsome of noises — the sound of my daughter crying loudly. In public.

I turned to find her cowering from a curtain of office workers, clean-cut folks with their noses pressed to their iPhones, trying mightily to ignore the noisy creature below.

Then the bus lurched into motion, sending my daughter flying to the floor, facedown in a forest of loafers, howling even louder than before.

I took a wide stance — my improvised strategy for simultaneously balancing and parenting on the zippy bus — and pulled my child to her feet.

But she wouldn't stop crying, wouldn't stop twisting her little body out of my arms. This was a parenting low point: a full-fledged tantrum unfolding aboard a 40-foot, 14-ton moving vehicle.

A friendly fellow passenger — a grandmother, I learned — was offering to help.

This happens most evenings on the packed city bus. A stranger sacrifices a little comfort, a little quality time with her iPhone, to make way for the wobbly preschooler.

Far as I can tell, the motivation is pure kindness. Metro Transit doesn't have a preferred seating policy for children.

Stubborn urban parent

I grew up in the 1980s and '90s in the working-class northern suburbs. I remember my father relying on a series of junker automobiles for his 15-mile commute to St. Paul. There was the 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, the '74 Dodge Ramcharger, the extra-long minty green '78 Ford Thunderbird.

Perhaps this explains why I dislike cars and find the upkeep so stressful.

I have lived and worked in the city for 20 years now. I long aspired to selling my sputtering old Volkswagen, later my rusty Honda station wagon and switching to the more carefree mode of mass transit. I finally made the leap when my employer moved to new offices in downtown Minneapolis last spring.

I find I'm pretty lucky as bus-riding parents go. For me, taking the bus is a matter of choice. I choose not to worry myself with mysterious blinking dashboard lights. I choose not to keep up with oil changes. I choose not to pay steep downtown parking fees.

What's more, I refuse to be shamed out of riding the bus.

Believe me, I have caught the icy stares while carting my imperfectly behaved kid through clothing boutiques, art galleries and upscale restaurants. We hardly go to those places anymore.

So every afternoon I walk, run or take the bus from the Star Tribune offices to my daughter's day care. I suit her up in weather-appropriate gear. And we walk hand-in-hand, usually against the wind, to catch the bus home.

Sure, we annoy people. I hear the clicking tongues, spot the deadly stares. One day a man turned to my happily chatting daughter and shushed her.

I used to feel guilty about the volume, for bringing my disruptive preschooler into the pressure-cooker of a city bus.

Then, slowly, I started making conversation with the other parents I encountered there. I reconnected with a magazine editor whose baby detests the car seat. I met a pro-transit city planner who rides with his toddler. I even met an accomplished insurance analyst who shepherds two children, a 5-month-old and a 3-year-old, on the bus every day.

After a year of riding the bus, my now 3-year-old has developed an affinity for mass transit — buses, trains, airplanes — and improved her behavior in public.

Most of all, I learned to ignore the eye-rolls from people who dislike children and reject their right to exist in public. I learned to deflect the glare of disapproval, like Wonder Woman with her magic wrist cuffs. I'm thankful to the bus for teaching me that.

Christy DeSmith • 612-673-1754