The Designated Adult
Why am I surprised. I am surprised. I am not surprised. Am I ambivalent? No matter. Little girls simply should not hie themselves off unescorted by older children or the company of at least one adult, to areas where no one can come to their aid if needed.
I did, as a child, accepting an invitation from another child to embark on a bold adventure where we walked, and we walked and we walked for miles in a downtown city concrete landscape until we came to a train marshalling yard. It was huge, utterly foreign to my hitherto-life's experiences, and raw, dirty and noisome in the extreme. Scary, is the word children would use. Needless to say we had been gone for hours, leaving our parents frantic to know exactly where it was we had absented ourselves to. I don't recall who found us or how we were discovered, and reunited with our worried, scolding parents, but it certainly was an adventure. A day later, older and wiser, I would not so readily have assented to accompany anyone to anything resembling an adventure of that type.
That was then, this is now. It's entirely possible that danger lurked everywhere fifty, sixty years ago, and young children were abducted never to be seen again, or murdered, or nothing at all happened to them other than sore feet and a sore backside, suffering huge bear hugs of relief at their safe return alternating with frustrated slaps on their little adventurous arses. I was myself vigilant with our three children when they were young and accompanied them everywhere while they were young, but didn't suffer quite the agonies of suspicion and fear, I'm sure, that parents of today must undergo.
On the other hand, communications are not now what they were then. We hardly knew of such events, and if we did, considered them to be horrible aberrations in the societal mainstream of trust and security. Now everything is reported, any kind of mishap, scandal, accident and misadventure. People read about such things with omniverous fervour, whether to frighten themselves into ever greater vigilance, or to congratulate themselves that they had, thus far, managed to ensure no such misadventure befell them or their loved ones.
Where was I? Oh yes, I was surprised. We were relaxing, just before dinner, reading the newspapers, when the doorbell rang and our little dogs sprang into action, defending home and hearth. Our front door is fully glassed so even before I opened it I could see there was a delegation awaiting outside on the porch. A cheery, insouciant delegation of four little girls; one sucking on an elongated ice cube, the other three eating luscious-looking peaches. In between slurps and bites they chirped how much they liked the flowers in the garden.
Fatty rascoon had slipped out the door in my wake and had instantly turned upside down the better for the little girls to descend upon him, oohing and ahhing, and stroking his fat little belly. And then, they stood up straight and stalwart before me and asked the question of the day: Would you come with us to the ravine? Aha! Would I! Not. Though I found their blandishments irresistible, I also found it in me to remain sturdily resistible. Designated adult?
I iterated and reiterated. Still wearing flip-flops, thinking of going through the ravine with those? Can't run in flip-flops! Remember what I told you yesterday: shouldn't go anywhere as remote to human habitation as the ravine without either an adult or a semi-adult leading the pack. Obviously: that's why they've asked you, dimwit. Um, we'd already been, quite a bit earlier in the day, so no, it wouldn't be convenient for me to accompany them, particularly since it was edging up to five, and the little dogs needed their dinner, and I had to begin preparing ours.
Each of the girls in turn solemnly informed me what time they had dinner. The tiniest, at 6 years of age, small for her age, confided that her father and her mother both have told her that she is not to go to the ravine without the presence of an adult or a teen-ager. Yes, chimed in the second-youngest friend. The two other girls, sisters, wore that look of preternatural knowingness, nodding their heads in agreement, but between them a message unspoken that adults were to be politely listened to, but no one is the boss of them!
It's these last few days before the start of school, and everyone seems to be waiting for something significant to happen; reality is in abeyance.
Toss those peach cores under the large leaves of the plantain lilies in the garden, I tell them, it makes for compost and it's good for the garden - as they stood there, holding those naked little leftovers. Happy to oblige, I tell them that the flowers will find the leftovers as delectable as they had found the fruit, and because of that they will bloom happily and beautifully, eliciting a laugh of appreciation, a veritable chorus.
They turn to leave, wave happily back at me, tell me they'll see me again soon. They will, I'm sure.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 29, 2006
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