From The Past: August 30, 2006

Some parents just amaze me.

I’ve always been the kind of parent who wants to be involved – who wants to know everything that goes on with my son or daughter. However, there are parents out there who could care less and prefer to not know anything. They would rather be in the dark than have to face reality and I for one think this is sad.

Back when Andrew was in fourth or fifth grade, he kept getting into trouble at school for talking. Come to find out, another boy was bothering him and Andrew was just trying to respond. He was trying to tell the other boy not to talk to him during class.

So, I called this boy’s mother. We were very good friends and I figured I could gently tell her about her son and she would take care of him and he would leave Andrew alone during class.

Yea, right.

Do you know she had the nerve to say to me, “Tami, do you think that I would call and tell you about Andrew if he were bothering my son?”

I told her I would want her to call me. I would expect her to call me. I would want to know.

She went on to say she couldn’t believe I would bother her over something like this. In other words, she didn’t care about what her son was doing. She didn’t care that her son was getting my son into trouble. She didn’t want to know and she wasn’t going to bother HIM with it.

Her son has since dropped out of high school because, “It was just too hard for him.”

Maybe he needed some guidance. Maybe he needed a parent and not a pal. Maybe he needed some rules and guidelines set before him. Too bad, he never got any of those things from her.

Our friendship was over after that. In her opinion, I had crossed a line by calling her about her son.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I heard another mother who sounded just like the previous one this afternoon and it reminded me of the incident.

Some parents just don’t care.