This world. Bah. I get so frusterated, so often. Here's a little story that happened a few weeks ago. B-ill, I and the little bit were at a park that's walking distance from our house. The Bit was playing on the slides, B-ill and I on the giant termite/wood chip pile, watching with the joy that is known to parents observing the hope they have for the world, in the grace of a child.
Not 30 yards from the uneven bars is a huge cherry tree. We've made pie from that tree. We've gone on flashlight walks and picked night cherries. It's already a part of Little Bit's childhood.
And up on bikes come 4 kids, not older than 11, maybe much younger, anything over LB's age and I'm ignorant of the intricacies. They're hanging under the tree. The cherry tree. So there they are, rukusing, 1 boy, 3 girls. They must have just recently (hopefully) learned the words and phrases fuck you, fucking bitch, shut the fuck up, and several other variations containing those key words. You get the idea. So by this time the Little Bit has joined us on the mound and is asking why those kids are so mean.
They I realize that they've got lighters and one little girl is working hard to get the green tree to catch fire. Then it dawns on me that the day before LB and I were hanging out at the park and 3 boys told us that they'd just put out a fire in the trashcan on the other side of the school, that they'd seen a girl set it on fire. Then I hear the girl scream,
It's on fire! Ahhhhh! I did that! I set that on fire! Me, I did it. It's on fire!!
And indeed it was on fire. Just a bit. The boy ran over to put it out and B-ill marched over with a determanance I usually have in those situations, like earlier this summer, when I kicked the proverbial ass of 5 boys who were beating up a little kid, and the jerky big sister of the victim, egging them on. Jerk-off. So, B-ill stepped up this time, with out even thinking. The girl saw him coming and tossed her lighter behind her while B-ill went to the boy
gimme the lighter
and they did. There was a moment of confusion. Strange to have authority, ya know? I could see Bill look a bit surprised and half expected him to follow it with
uh...what else ya got? ha.
Instead he told them that if anything else caught on fire, he'd find where they lived and talk to their parents and the cops.
As they got on their bikes and rode off, the girl screamed back that she wanted her lighter back...blah blah blah.
LB didn't understand, any of it. Not the meaness, not the fire, not the yelling.
Then B-ill and I started feeling regret. Like what kind of good did it really do? I mean really? I half expected those kids' parents to show up on our way home and wanna kick our asses. Or our house to be burnt down in the near future. Or something more sinister and terrible. I started to fear. Not just about this case in particular, but more about the state of the world and how people are raising their children in response to, or is it the other way around?
Like the world is so tough and mean and ugly that they've gotta weed out of their children any bit of compassion, conscience, and innocence, just so they can make it. Of course, any fool can see that logic, but any person, of the less-foolish variety can see how it also breaks the fuck down. Foster the natural, and it is natural, compassion and goodness in children and the world gets less ugly. Less scary. Less terrible.
And for fucks sake, leave my cherry tree alone!
Posted by jacey at September 18, 2005 12:31 AMWell, you're sending 1 decent kid into the world to spread the goodness. I've got 1 I'm working on so far and will have at least 1 more to work with. That's 3 into the world which is a start!
I don't understand what is happening and why kids today are so different from kids when I was young. Yes, I was a bit of a rebel but even the REAL rebels I knew wouldn't talk back to an adult or set fire to stuff just for the hell of it... It makes me really sad and is one major reason we want to leave where we are for places new, too many kids like that in this city.
Hugs
Posted by: Anna at September 18, 2005 05:56 AMOh that's just awful. Kids are different these days and it scares me. It seems that the world as a whole is in such a rush for them to grow up and find early independence; or parents that don't know or don't care enough to help them slow down or help manage everything around them.
I'm so thankful that our immediate circle of friends and family wants to enjoy the kid-ness as long as possible.
Hopefully everything balances out in the future and our own kids will be surrounded by well-adjusted peers, but I'm being exceedingly optimistic here.
Posted by: Lynn at September 18, 2005 09:29 AMGood for you guys!
I'm amazed at how different kids are these days but parents are different too. So many take very little interest in their kids lives and discipline that kids get away with more. I think we all tried bad stuff but there was no way most of us would get away with it. Now kids do get away with it so they keep trying worse things. At least that's my theory.
I suppose all we can do is try to make sure our kids don't turn out to be jerks too.
Posted by: Amy Boogie at September 18, 2005 09:52 AMi hope somebody gets a hold of that little girl and channels her pyromania into something creative. teach her how to weld or get her into a woodburning class or something. someone needs to let her know that her natural fascination with fire doesn't have to be destructive. she'd probably make a great fire inspector one day.
*sigh*
someday i want a class full of kids who just need somebody to tell them what they *can* do. might save some cherry trees.
Posted by: nakachi at September 18, 2005 12:58 PMOMGosh,
I would have done the same thing! We were at Disney this year and 2 kids were stealing change out of the fountain and there was no one watching them. The older sister came up and was asking them where they had been (seems they lost another of the kids and were off looking for that one)So, I said something. The mother came back a little later and was yelling at me that they had lost a child and those children didn't steal any money from the fountain and what was I the fountain police and didn't disney have enough money...yada, yada, yada... I calmly told her that, when she said she didn't need this agravation, If she looked really carefully, I had 4 children with me all accounted for and not stealing money from a fountain, because it is wrong and stealing is stealing!
I hope they don't burn your cherry tree down. People need to pay more attention to their kids, mine know that look and they stop whatever they are doing immediately.
Posted by: Christine at September 18, 2005 09:03 PMIt is hard to be the "authority figure", especially when we didn't like them when we were younger. But some kids have no guidance and need to be called out on things. I know that feeling of fear every time I have to holler at the neighbor kids. I just know the mother is going to run out and start giving me a ration of shit for daring to scold her children. Then I remember, no one ever pays attention to the kids, so they wouldn't know anyways! I am more worried about what the little heathen children will do than the mother. They have no respect- oh, I never thought I'd say those words! Where is the balance between respecting the people and world around you and having a healthy dose of questioning authority? I feel your pain...
Posted by: steff at September 19, 2005 12:39 PM