Still “down in my back” as they say around here, so Nana came over to watch Pumpkin while I walked up to get Monkey at school. On our way home we saw, and heard, something rather disturbing: a boy of about 9 or 10 was positively wailing the tar out of a slightly littler girl. The boy and girl were similar in build and coloring, and turned out to be older brother and younger sister. But still.

When we got up to them, she was sobbing loudly and vainly trying to tie her shoe. And he was vainly trying to get her up off the ground so they could get home. Turns out two other little sisters had run on ahead of them and the big little boy in charge of them all was beside himself with worry.

He told me that she just wouldn’t keep up with him and he had to take care of her because, and I quote, “She’s cute! She’s just a target, with arms and legs, to child molesters!” This valiant big little boy was only trying to protect her, and his other sisters. Finally, she got up and told me she was o.k. to walk. Soon they outpaced us-because I’m “down in my back” and can’t move all that quickly.

So, I was in a good position to see when he started wailing on her again. This time he was putting his hands in the middle of her back and pushing her. She couldn’t take anymore and just stopped. Meddling Mama that I am, I walked right back up to them, whipped out my cell phone, and demanded, “What is your mother’s phone number!” I put the number in but waited to hit dial. “O.K., this the last chance before I dial. Do I still need to call your mother?” Before they could answer, two teachers from Monkey’s school caught up to us.

The poor, big little boy once again repeated that his sister was a target with arms and legs to child molesters, and his other sisters wouldn’t stop, and this sister was just having a bad day. I really began to feel for the boy at that point. Here was this little kid, saddled with this overwhelming responsibility, and just trying his best to meet it. And here was this little girl, having to deal with the aftermath of a bad day at school, and just trying to keep herself together.

Our neighborhood is just filled with kids who walk home from school, lots of them littler than this boy and girl. And I’m sure that the big little boy could get himself home without too much trouble. But I am concerned with the added responsibility he’s been given. And then there’s the onus of keeping his sisters safe from child molesters. Which isn’t even possible. While children, and people in general, are safer in groups, the fact remains that a determined predator isn’t going to be stopped by the presence of a small-to-middling boy.

I don’t think a little boy should be burdened with that much responsibility. Look, parents of this child, if you feel so uneasy about all of your children walking home from school that you find it necessary to fill your son with an almost paralyzing fear of child molesters, then you should make other arrangements. But instead of making other arrangements, you’ve placed an adult-sized responsibility on a child. And if, God forbid, something were to happen, that child would be dealing with the trauma of having failed his duty for the rest of his life.

You know, I’m not a perfect mother by any measuring, some days I don’t even feel like a very good mother, but even I know not to do this. It is my son’s job to be nice to his sister, not to look out for her physical well-being. That’s my job. As he gets older, he can be as protective as he wants to be, but he will never be in charge of making sure she doesn’t get abducted! I’ll be happy if he just stops hitting her!

Anyway, it all turned out well. The brave big little boy ran and retrieved his other sisters and one of the teachers walked the whole crew home. The other teacher thanked me for staying with them until the situation was resolved. I told her that, as a mom, I would hope that another parent would do the same for my kids.

Oh, wait, I guess I do know what I think about this after all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Healthy Family, In front of the neighbors, Kids' Room. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.