As you know, we’ve started a new series on Wednesdays providing ‘Would You Rather’ questions for youth. Well, I thought I’d provide you with your own special version today:
Would you rather advocate for a youth and get a punch in the face (probably from their parent) or ignore it and save yourself the grief?
Yes, yes, I know there are probably more than these two options for this situation but it seriously doesn’t feel like it most of the time.
So – which would you choose?
My choice
More often than I care to admit I choose the latter. Like Wednesday.
Walking out after Girl Scouts, a small child (I mean definitely under 5 and probably around 3) was wandering away from his mom. Her aggressive and LOUD response?
‘Get the F*** over here!’
I hate it when that kind of language is used towards anyone – especially a youth or child – and it sends me through the roof. (BTW: I’m not perfect; I might have been known to drop the f-bomb myself on occasion, although usually about things or situations and definitely not at people.)
Options
What should you do? What should you say? I could have walked over and said ‘Hey, that’s not nice’, but with several angry and loud women around, I would more likely have been inviting trouble.
In the communities that I work in, I also have a very careful line that I have to walk. I work very hard not to be a ‘social worker-y type’ in a neighborhood where authority is often white and often oppressive. That doesn’t mean I let things slide, but the families in those communities know I love and respect them – I don’t just go around picking fights and reporting people. It’s what allows me to keep doing my work there without problem or incident.
Then you get into the whole ‘who’s raising this child’ discussion. Many parents would say ‘This is my child and I’ll do as I please.’ What can be your answer to that? And what if I got it wrong (even though I’m 99% sure I didn’t) and this was a one-off, an accident born of a day of crazy 3 year old behavior?
I know in this instance we’re talking about a small child, but I know that you (like me) have heard parents talk like this to their children in the store, at the mall, on the street, from their car, in their yard and the age ranges from very small to teens. I regularly hear my youth called worthless, stupid, lazy, ‘bad’ (oh ‘bad’ is one of my worst ones! They aren’t bad, they just don’t always make good choices!!), and much more. I hear them get sworn at and even see them get a wallop on occasion.
What I try to do
For me it’s a tough one. Here’s what I do:
- If I hear youth or children talk like that to each other (which happens um, yeah… every day actually), then I say something to them.
- If I see a child or youth misbehaving in a store and they’re not being dealt with by the adult with them, I’ll whisper to them, give them “the look” or make a joke so they know I’m watching. (I walked into a center the other day where a boy was shouting at the top of his lungs and was being ignored by the staff – I just looked his way and he was silent and then he smiled at me and I smiled at him and he was quiet).
- If I see an adult disciplining a child or teen in a way that I think is harsh, I tend to hang around; most parents stop acting completely crazy when they see another adult around.
- If necessary, I’ll call the non-emergency police number, but that’s pretty rare.
And sometimes, like Wednesday, I get in my car and drive off feeling the sting of shame for not standing up for my little friend.
Question: What would you rather do? Let us know in the comments below.
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