When the young man in the pickup stopped to offer me a ride, I was still in shock. I was carrying my 20-month-old down an arterial street in Victoria during Friday rush-hour traffic last fall. My daughter’s sturdy legs and a laundry bag from her daycare bumped against me as I walked. A tear had plowed down my cheek. I gratefully declined the offer. “We got kicked off the bus,” I burst out. The man looked surprised, then nervous. Only louts get thrown off buses, right? Little did I know the pariah I’d soon become when my story hit the Internet.

We’d been heading home from my daughter Briar’s daycare—a 10-minute ride on B.C. Transit. My usually cheerful daughter was stormy that day, and, after the bus left the terminal, began shouting, “No, no, no,” like a toddler metronome. My bag of tricks—book, snack, sippy cup—did not work. Five minutes into the route, the driver intervened. “It has to stop,” he said, or we had to leave the bus. “You have to learn to control her,” he told me, and pulled over. My daughter shushed. I carried her to the front, and told the driver I had no stroller (my husband had dropped her off by bike). I asked if we could get off at an actual stop. Other passengers began shouting: “She’s quiet now! Let her stay!” The chorus continued after we were out on the curb, and the driver mumbled we could get back on. “I can’t 100 per cent guarantee she won’t cry again,” I told him. I started walking.

When I returned home, still stunned, I filed a complaint with B.C. Transit. I was promised an investigation, and that the driver would be monitored. Two weeks passed. When I received a form letter and four bus tickets by mail, it rekindled my humiliation. I just wanted a sincere apology. I emailed our newspaper, and on Sept. 26 the Victoria Times Colonist ran an article: “Crying toddler kicked off bus.”

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