Years ago I was sitting in the small entrance way to a synagogue just off upper Connecticut Avenue waiting for my Hebrew teacher. That's right, my Hebrew teacher. I've tried my hand at Spanish, French, Italian and can barely get English correct more times than not. Sometimes the words of each language come back. Most often, they don't. So I figured if I learned Hebrew I could go back and learn every Romance language that beat me down. (Yeah, I was in the Spanish Honor Society in at St. John's College High. But that was more test scores than truly understanding much less speaking the language.)
I learned to read classic Hebrew fairly well. Learned the prayers and learned the greetings for the holidays. Don't ask now...my memory is very Italian - it's a spaghetti strainer with the knowledge acquired oozing out in record time.
At any rate, I was sitting there waiting when a very stunning young woman strode up to the thick glass entrance doors. Her appearance, dress and demeanor were all quite something. As she approached the door she raised an arm, the door swung open as if on cue (apparently the gym was a daily haunt). To say she "strode" in is the perfect use of the verb. Head held high...face forward...eyes focused on her destination without even a hint of acknowledging anything or anyone around her. You know the look. It's on every shopper at Whole Foods Market and every BMW/LEXUS/MERCEDES driver flying up 270 at 75 mph or on 70 East or West doing 80. As she cleared the path of the heavy door, now swinging back to its original rest position, I stared in abject horror at the scene before me. Her five- or six-year-old child was walking in behind her. Bam! The door slammed into him face first. She never made an effort to see that the tot made safe passage into the house of worship. I was too far away to act save to repress a dual urge to vomit and yell an obscenity at her. But, for once, I just stared silently in disbelief. To her credit (?) she did turn and played perfectly the upset mom, again, as if it was written into the script she was following. No "I'm sorry." No acknowledgment that this was the consequence of her behavior. That was twenty or thirty years ago. Today, she probably would have sued the synagogue because the door endangered her child.
Since that time I've viewed or learned of much worse...not the horrors that make the daily news, but in many ways, close. Personal stuff. There's the obviously grotesque and unforgivable. A former DC cop told me of responding to a call of a child in danger. He and his partner ran up the stairs past parents too strung out on heroin or crack to notice or comprehend that anything was amiss. In the house they went to a bathroom overflowing with water, human waste and an infant face down and lifeless lying on the floor. I felt most sorrow for the cop. He had to live with the image of what he saw. As tragic as the child's death was, he was at least free from a life of worse.
Then there is experience of a young man I know. His father and mother divorced when he was very young. The most vivid image I have of his childhood was when he waited all day for his father to pick him up for a weekend together. He sat on the front stoop for hours. The father never showed.
The occasions when he took the child often saw him fairly comatose from alcohol and the boy left to his own devices. If you thought the boy had a difficult time, you would be right on target. Think of any way a kid could get messed up because of an alcoholic father and an emotionally distant mother and you get a pretty accurate picture. There are plenty of profiles on characteristics common to children of this type parent and ...suffice to say trusting adults and accepting responsibility for missteps are not among them.
When a step father appeared on the scene, early attempts at parenting met the stone wall of youthful rejection. That led to a mutual animosity that led to outright hostility. The idea that the trust curve would take Herculean patience and understanding was, to the outsider looking in, was an option that never had a chance with the step dad or the biological mother. It would have taken too much time away from the life they enjoyed. Too much a bother. The jury has not yet issued a verdict but the outcast lad seems to be making a significant course correction: working two jobs seven days a week and getting good grades via a reputable on-line university thanks to the help of other relatives with far more charity, understanding and kindness.
Then there is the absent parent who spent a lifetime barely noticing the second of two children. Contrary to the myth perpetrated by all too many psychologists, child welfare services, the courts and the media, the maternal parent is the self-indulgent perpetrator. Seriously, go to Maryland Child Services and look at their forms. No where is there reference to the father as the caring parent. It's all maternal oriented. I kid you not.
What is painful is to watch the absentee parent fawn in writing to the abandoned child, now a teen. Not the least suggestion is made that the parent's behavior rejected and subsequently alienated the child. Not the first word that the mother has any inkling of accepting her own behavior is suggested in a saccharinly sweet and overly melodramatic Christmas letter that says the lad is "finally understood." What did he do???? The pain is watching the boy toss the message aside, then having to pick it up off the floor after he walks away.
All any of those children wanted or deserved was someone to truly care and speak the truth. I believe it's called respect.
Then
No comments:
Post a Comment