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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mac Con Ulaidh who wrote (75214)	5/18/2010 1:45:38 PM
From: one_less	Respond to of 149317

"Yes, I know that you have trouble believing that. You don't want to believe it, so you tend not to." When it was time for my kid to start taking the bus (6th grade), I went to the bus stop with her ... everyday. 30 kids at her particular stop would show up and spend about 20 minutes throwing rocks, word bombs, and whatever else they could do to annoy one another until the bus pulled up, at which time they would rush the doors in a mob smashing each other against the bus so the driver couldn't get the door open. You'd think they wood get tired of that after a few days, unless you take a little closer look, then you notice there is quite a bit of groping and fondling going on where the objections don't match the facial expressions. I was the only adult around and other adults told me I was making a mistake. My kid should learn at this age to fend for herself. She is sixty lbs now and more than a head shorter than the shortest kid in her group, but she is also being raised differently than the rest. Our rule is, 'the only winner in a game of bully is the one who refuses to play.' I figured the rest of the kids would resent me when I started saying stuff like 'put down that rock, you are not going to act like that while I'm here.' 'Or get back out of the street and stop flipping off the cars.' I can have fun with kids but I also have a no nonsense tone which comes in handy at times like these. On a couple of occasions I chewed kids out for talking bad around me and I made it clear I was there for my daughter. I wondered if she'd get picked on over it but it even surprised me when she told me some of the meanest gangsters were exceptionally kind to her. Of course she deserves credit because she is an exceptionally giving and kind person herself, but just the same it surprised me. When I was young it was different, it was like those other adults said. We had to learn to take care of ourselves, when all else failed everybody had a set of parents who could get together with the others and work it out. I have concluded that some of the meanest of these bus kids must have liked the idea of an adult around who actually behaved like a guardian, something they were missing in their own lives. Some things improved. A few of the kids got to where they would actually form a line behind the main mob. They'd be the last to get seats on an already crowded bus but they got notice from me once in a while for their attempts at polite behavior and good manners. By winter break of sixth grade I decided to start driving my kid to school. She's about to finish the second year of middle school. I see those kids hanging around the neighborhood still, they are always polite to me, and that seem like something good that might have come of that bus stop thing. "Yes, I know that you have trouble believing that. You don't want to believe it, so you tend not to." Things have changed a lot recently. The world, the circumstances, and the conditions kids are growing up in are much different. I have no trouble believing that, heart breaking as it is to see. When you were young it was common to talk about kids who were run aways. There were support groups in towns for run away kids, who often helped to get them back to the family and helped to resolve family conflict. Now when they are gone, they are just gone and there may not even be anything to send them back to.