A Bridget Jones moment; or, why the prospect of motherhood sort of freaks me out

A few hours ago, I took the elevator back up to my mother's condo. In the elevator with me were a mother and her daughter, a toddler, neither of whom I knew or had seen before. The mother was apparently somewhat upset; the little girl had urinated on someone's floor and they were going upstairs to change her clothes. The mother had started a bit of a monologue in the lobby, in the sort of loud, clearly enunciated voice people use with children, and continued it on the elevator:

"Mommy needs you to know that peeing on floors is not okay. You can't wear big girl underpants if you can't let someone know when you need to go to the bathroom. People don't like it when you pee on the floor. This is important, okay? Big girls use the toilet."

I was getting out before them, and as the doors opened on my floor, I heard the mother say, "Don't touch Mommy's hand; you just wiped your nose with your hand. It has snot on it."

Does the fact that this conversation strikes me as odd mean I'm mean-spirited? I don't dislike children in general. I'm not particularly good with them, but I'm not opposed to having children on principle. I don't see the sense in expecting babies not to cry in public, for example, or for little kids to be perfectly behaved all the time.

No, it was the mother's behavior that sort of spooked me. I'm guessing that her pre-child life did not include discussing various bodily fluids in public places and in front of complete strangers. The whole situation was just a reminder of how much people change. I've known rather polite and shy people who get into their first serious romantic relationship and suddenly think it's okay to make out in extremely public places and to put an damper on larger social outings by focusing all their attention on their significant other and turning their other friends present into uncomfortable spectators. And apparently becoming a mother can produce the same sort of effect.

Then again, there are all sorts of mothers. My memory doesn't go back that far, but I'm pretty sure my mother would have waited until we were back home to scold me on a subject like that.