mtpolitics.net

On Responsibility

When I think about the reason for my conservative bent, I think it can come down to one thing: responsibility. Growing up, I was taught that I should take care of my own business when I could, and not expect other people to do it for me. By the same token, though, I was taught to recognize that sometimes people do need help, and that it’s important to help out when you can.

Now that I’m on the parental side of that equation, I’m trying to teach my kids the same thing — you are responsible for yourself. It’s a pretty vague concept for primary school kids (and even more so for toddlers), but you can start with small things: If you leave your popular and ridiculously expensive {toy|game} outside, something bad might happen to it.

So far, we haven’t had to have an object lesson — at least not with anything major.

This afternoon, while the kids cheerfully destroyed the house, I was doing some inner eyelid maintenance. (Hey, I’m a Dad, it’s what I do.) I was jolted from my important work by the doorbell. Usually when the doorbell rings at that time of day, it’s one of the neighborhood kids asking if my daughter can come out and play. So I ambled to the door, only to find the mother of one of the neighborhood kids holding a broken toy.

She introduced herself, and indicated that the toy was a birthday present from Saturday, and further that it had been in our yard (true), and was now broken (true). She then told me that it was probably my son who had broken it, and asked if we were going to be buying her 11-year old daughter a new one.

Now, if you know me, you know that I’m not the quickest person to wake up and get going. After performing crucial inner eyelid maintenance, I was a bit groggy, so I stood there with a dumb look on my face while I processed this information, and trying to comprehend the logic behind the demand that we should buy a new toy. Finally I said, “Well, yeah, that was in my yard last night, but I had no idea where it came from or who it belonged to.”

She looked at me — I could tell she was pissed — and said, “Well, don’t you want to teach your kids about responsibility?”

My brain was no longer sleep-addled, but there was little I could do but stand there, struck dumb as a mullet^*.

Responsibility?

You mean like picking up your toys, and not leaving them scattered around the neighborhood type responsibility?

I looked at her and said, “My kids are pretty damn good at keeping their own toys picked up and not laying around the neighborhood.”

Silence.

At this point, she grabbed her daughter, and told her to never come back here again. As she was walking down the sidewalk, she couldn’t resist a parting shot at my cat. “You’d better hope I never catch your cat in my yard.”

You have to keep in mind that her daughter is standing right next to her throughout this whole thing, and I’ve got one kid out in the yard, and one right next to me, not to mention various neighborhood kids — all of them can hear the whole exchange, so I’m trying to keep things cool.

As the mother is stomping down the sidewalk, I call my daughter back into the house, and ask her what happened. “Did your brother break it?” I ask. I already know the answer, and to me, it’s irrelevant.

“Yes.”

My son is not yet 3, and if you’ve been around kids that age, you know that their world revolves around the concept of “Mine.” If they can see it, touch it or grab it, it’s “mine.” They just can’t parse the idea of something belonging to someone else.

Here’s the comeback that came to me .003 seconds after she was out of earshot: “So, let me get this straight: Your 11-year old daughter leaves her toy laying around in my yard overnight, my 2-year old son gets a hold of it when he goes outside to play in his yard, and ruins it. It’s somehow his fault? GMAFB.”

When I was that age, had I been in a similar situation, my parents would have told me, “Well, you’d better keep closer track of your stuff, hadn’t you?”

I have all kinds of aspersions that I want to cast, and I suspect that 90% of them would be spot-on, but in the end my sympathies lie with her daughter. What are the odds that she will grow up and not believe that she’s entitled to something just because she is drawing breath?

Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on it, I think I’m more sad than angry.

But, if something should happen to the cat, I’ve got the threat documented, and I’ve let the cops know what happened here today.

It’s “Trust But Verify” carried to the local level.

^*Yeah, I know I use that phrase a lot, but I like it a lot.