V. Bee offers her fellow readers a slice of life from “The Golden Era” and warns us...
BEWARE!
LITTLE ONES ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH!
By V. Bee
When I was a young mother, there was a period of
time (years ago) that their father and myself were not together. My
eldest child was about five years old, the youngest was about three
years old and the last one had not yet been born.
Their father and I had our problems, like any other
couple, and like any other couple, it was usually due to not having
enough money. It was impossible for me to work. Back then, you
didn’t (and could not find) hire babysitters, you stayed home with the
kids. Which was okay with me. It was, however, not so for
their father, who at that time in his life could not stand the idea of
being tied down.
So, for a period of 2-3 years, we found ourselves
all alone. The in-laws were no help, they considered me and the kids to
be the “enemy.” My parents were elderly and not able to control
children of those ages very well, and only for short periods of time.
We lived in a multiple-unit building at that time;
we had a 2-bedroom apartment which never seemed big enough. One
floor below us, there lived a single woman who also had two
children. Her kids were around the same ages as mine. We
gravitated together naturally. After all, we had the same
situations - trying to survive with kids and have a life at the same
time.
So, it wasn’t long before we rented a larger,
3-bedroom apartment in the same building and set up housekeeping.
She stayed home. I went to work. It was a made-to-order
situation for us both that benefitted us both at that time of our
lives. I paid the rent, took care of the bills and necessities.
When we went out together, we of course took the
kids along. One afternoon, we all went to one of those
neighborhood carnivals. You know, the ones with the rip-off
merchants that get you to try and win a toy when they perfectly well
know it’s impossible. We were walking through the crowd with the
little ones in tow...you know how parents do, watching the kids, but
really not paying attention......
A woman - uh, a rather large woman - walked past us
in the opposite direction. She must have weighed between 350 and
400 pounds (really). She was hanging out of her too short shorts
and the blouse she was wearing didn’t hide much. She was holding
an enormous huge mound of cotton candy - pink cotton candy - up to her
mouth. She gave my little son - age 3 - a frightening scowl as
she went by, mouth open, cotton candy dripping down.
My friend was walking ahead of me with her two kids.
The merry-go-round music was playing. The barkers were yelling out
their merchandise. The bell ringer bellowed. The people on the
tilt-a-whirl and Ferris wheel were screaming (either to get off or on),
the smell of hot dogs and candy corn filled the air. I saw her
look at my son. Before I could react, my little child, in the
loudest voice possible for one so young. yelled:
“MOMMA! MOMMA! LOOK AT THOSE BIG BALLOONS!”
My friend stopped in her tracks. For a moment in
time, nothing moved, breathed, talked or contemplated. People
walking by looked at me, then at my son. In spite of all the noise, I
heard nothing but dead silence. Then, people around started
laughing. My friend came running back to see what was happening - she
missed the whole thing.
What could I do? Rather, what DO I do? I didn’t have
a clue. Fortunately, my friend kept her head and got everyone over to
the picnic tables before anyone else could figure out what the joke was
all about.
Did I tell son, no, you don’t do that? Yes. But he
was three years old. He told it like he saw it. How do you tell a
3-year old not to tell the truth?
Maybe, just maybe, a little bit of that kind of honesty would go a long way these days..
For more articles by V. Bee, visti her archives...
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