Some things about New Zealand don't seem to have changed much since I was a kid.
A little boy of six or seven broke his wrist down at the wharf today. He was there by himself. His mum was out somewhere; there was no one at home (which was a 20 minute walk away anyhow). No one out of the twenty of so kids or three adults there had a phone, and the adults didn't have cars. One of the adults took him back to her place, since it was only a ten minute walk away. No one seemed bothered by the fact that this little boy was going off with a total stranger. Everyone seemed to have no doubt at all that everything would turn out all right, and I guess it probably will.
I wonder if the hospital will call child protective services when they find that the kid was swimming in the sea alone, at home alone, and doesn't know how to contact his parents? Or maybe that's still so common around here that no one will be at all surprised.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Summer at the beach
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 Comments:
It sounds a lot better than the obsessive parenting I see sometimes. And, from what you've written, it sounds like the kid will be fine, and someone did take care to get him home, and so forth.
A six-year-old swimming unsupervised is not cool. But it's nice everybody rallied round him when he got hurt.
If they'd had the laws they have now when I was a kid, my father would have spent most of his life in prison, I think.
(What do you mean a 13-year-old should not be driving the car? I needed a NAP!)
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)