And then there were lots of sirens, which was unusual but not overly troubling, until the flashing lights left the main road (all two lanes of it) and entered their quiet piece of suburbia.
They were inside, eating lunch, when Little Cuter read the alert from the neighborhood's Facebook group, among whose members are several police officers. After abandoning his car on the highway (several miles away), the driver had been tracked to their neighborhood. The police were in pursuit.
SIR went out to shut the doors and gates. The sirens increased in volume and frequency. The grown ups contemplated taking the family down to the basement.
There were loud pops.
The alert was over. An ambulance was on the way to take the suspect to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest.
The neighborhood was quiet once again.
A few hours later, when asked if she wanted to tell Gramma and Grampa about their exciting afternoon, FlapJilly started out this way: A man was having a really bad day, and so there were police... and..... then she lost interest in the story and ran off to play in the mud kitchen.
They are definitely not having a bad day.
I am a quiet reader of your blog, from Mumbai. I follow US news here , and Flapjilly's description of what happened was so sharp. Children watch, hear and learn. I hope we are able to create a better world for them, than we currently have.
ReplyDeleteI have a bit of interest in Tucson. In 1972 did grad school at UC Irvine, where one of my dear friends did his doctorate . He is now a very world famous , illustrious member on the faculty of the University of Arizona at Tucson. I love reading your blog with this Tucson connection !!!
Hello!! I often wondered who was behind the star on my readership map in Mumbai :-)
DeleteShe's listening to how the world is explained and creating her reality from the words her parents use. Kindness and compassion lead. As for evil, she's only 6 and bc of COVID has been more sheltered from the world than she might otherwise have been. There's time enough to be made aware of the awful.
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Do you think "having a bad day" has entered the lexicon of explaining why people commit crimes. It was surprising to hear Flapjilly say those words. The mud kitchen looks delightful.
ReplyDeleteHi Allison! FWIW, while we certainly acknowledge that there are both good and bad people in the world, my husband and I think it's important to teach our kids that not every cop is "arresting bad guys" all day long. As a way to move our youth in a more compassionate direction and teach them how to employ a more nuanced assessment of those around us, we like to, when logical, try to explain that sometimes regular people just "have a bad day" but that doesn't make them an inherently "bad person". Does that make sense?
Delete(p.s. This was particularly helpful when sitting in an ER for 5 hours with a then 4 y.o. flapjilly who saw a LOT of people having "very bad days". I didn't want her to think we were surrounded by "bad guys".)
Tomorrow's post replies to this.
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