recent observations - reprehensible!
So imagine our surprise Saturday evening when a little boy knocked on our door and asked if his mommy was there?
This poor kid, who couldn't have been older than 10, was searching from building to building for his mom, who we'll call "Betty", who apparently had gone to one of the apartment buildings in our complex to visit a fella, who we'll call "George". "George" lived on the second floor, somewhere, and the boy didn't know which building, which apartment, or even the guy's full name.
At first I answered that his mom was not there, but then I went after the boy and asked him if he was supposed to have met his mother at a certain place, certain time, and told him to come back if he couldn't find her and we'd walk around and help him look. After a couple of hours, my conscience was gnawing at me and I went looking for the kid. He was playing with some boys he didn't seem to know, even though when I asked if he had found his mom, he said no, that he was just going to play with his "friends" until she showed up. I asked if he knew his mother's phone number, and he said yes. I decided to stop asking questions for fear of making him scared of anyone who would ever try to help him out. I told him to be careful, and left him striking a small branch against the sidewalk in angry, short bursts. And that was the last time I saw him.
That night, we wondered what happened to the boy. We wondered what kind of mom would go to visit a man and just leave her kid high and dry, lost to wonder around and knock on the doors of strangers. Of course, for the sake of fairness, I wondered if the boy had run off on his own against his mother's wishes, or maybe knew exactly where she was, or just if he had lied, for attention or something else that I'll never understand. And apart from watching the boy until his mother showed, what do you do? Calling the police seemed like the only other option.
But it was hard to get that one question out of my head: what kind of mother...?
The wrong kind.
This poor kid, who couldn't have been older than 10, was searching from building to building for his mom, who we'll call "Betty", who apparently had gone to one of the apartment buildings in our complex to visit a fella, who we'll call "George". "George" lived on the second floor, somewhere, and the boy didn't know which building, which apartment, or even the guy's full name.
At first I answered that his mom was not there, but then I went after the boy and asked him if he was supposed to have met his mother at a certain place, certain time, and told him to come back if he couldn't find her and we'd walk around and help him look. After a couple of hours, my conscience was gnawing at me and I went looking for the kid. He was playing with some boys he didn't seem to know, even though when I asked if he had found his mom, he said no, that he was just going to play with his "friends" until she showed up. I asked if he knew his mother's phone number, and he said yes. I decided to stop asking questions for fear of making him scared of anyone who would ever try to help him out. I told him to be careful, and left him striking a small branch against the sidewalk in angry, short bursts. And that was the last time I saw him.
That night, we wondered what happened to the boy. We wondered what kind of mom would go to visit a man and just leave her kid high and dry, lost to wonder around and knock on the doors of strangers. Of course, for the sake of fairness, I wondered if the boy had run off on his own against his mother's wishes, or maybe knew exactly where she was, or just if he had lied, for attention or something else that I'll never understand. And apart from watching the boy until his mother showed, what do you do? Calling the police seemed like the only other option.
But it was hard to get that one question out of my head: what kind of mother...?
The wrong kind.
posted by scn at 3:30 PM
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