blackwithoutkids

I don’t automatically love every kid that I come across.  If I like a kid, that’s saying a lot.  There’s a nice kid who goes to my church.  I nicknamed the kid Poindexter because he wears glasses and is a little nerdy.  Recently, I learned from his mom that Poindexter gets picked on every time he shows up for the youth group on Sunday afternoons.  She told me that two boys in the group harass her son.  Before she told me the name of one of the bullies, I had guessed who it was.

Smirking Boy has been a problem since he started coming to church over a year ago.  Once, he was giggling and talking so much during service that the pastor stopped in the middle of his sermon to ask him to pay attention.  The boy didn’t even have the sense enough to be embarrassed.  I was sitting behind him that morning, holding myself back from slapping him upside his head.  As soon as the benediction was read, I snapped on Smirking Boy.  He made the wrong choice of playing me off.  I’ve had no use for the kid since that time.

Every time I complain that kid’s out-of-pocket behavior, as well as the antics of some of the other kids who attend my church, Pastor makes excuses for them.  I keep hearing about the broken homes they come out of and the lack of parental guidance.  “We have to suffer with them,” he says.  But how long are we supposed to put up with bad behavior?

For almost six years, I was an administrative assistant with a social service agency.  My office was on the top floor of a therapeutic residential center that housed youths who had mental and emotional problems.  Vandalism, theft, and assaults were day-to-day occurences.  A couple of the kids gained access to a phone, and they decided to make prank calls.  One of the calls was to my work voice mail.  They left a racial epithet that I played back for my boss when he came.  “I’m sorry,” he told me.  “You can’t apologize for someone else’s stupidity,” I snapped.  “You have to understand their issues,” he told me.  So I guess the counselor who came in and found her office totally trashed one morning was supposed to overlook that in light of the kids’ issues.  So was the child care worker who had a rock thrown at her forehead.  She had to be rushed to the hospital, as did the worker who was beaten horribly by another kid.  I informed the boss, “I’m old school when it comes to kids.  You don’t negotiate with them, you don’t argue with them, and you don’t compromise with them.  Their function in life is to do what they are told until they are 18 years old.”  “That’s tough love,” he commented in a tone that indicated he didn’t believe in that concept.  That is the problem with a lot of people.

“I wish I would catch Smirking Boy picking on Poindexter”, I told Pastor over lunch a few days ago.   “Be slow to anger,” the pastor told me, before offering up another set of excuses for Smirking Boy.  Poindexter doesn’t want to come to youth group because of the intimidation tactics to which he’s being exposed.  That’s not right.  There is speculation that Poindexter is being picked on because the bullies are jealous of the fact that Poindexter’s dad is at home.  It is also thought that because Poindexter is the only white kid in a youth group that’s predominately African-American, he’s catching flak.  Regardless of the reason, it shouldn’t be happening.  Making excuses about Smirking Boy’s behavior is the same as enabling him, and other bad seeds, to continue in it. 

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