Taking it Out on the Kids
February 19th 2012 01:21
I was once late in picking up my daughter. It was totally beyond my control. I felt so guilty that even now, so many years later, I can see that woebegone child sitting on the steps, waiting.
I mention this for contrast.
Minny's daughter takes extra lessons. The class is over at 5:45. Minny arrives at my location at about 4:30. She sits at a computer and fools around until 5:45. "Don't like to wait." she sneers.
That's not the reason.
The reason is that she remained with Freddie, who she has long ceased to even like, much less love, and now that she's misshapen and old before her time, and is accustomed to the money and the travel and the few perqs she 'can't' leave him.
She has never seemed happy, and the only time she talks with some enthusiasim is to one of her friends, and then in that forced tone which is denegrating someone else.
To pick up her child is done with resentment.
On Thursday the child takes another class at a different school.
This class begins at 6:00. It is not difficult to get from School 1 to School 2 in less than 15 minutes.
On Thursday Minny sits at the computer from 4:30 to 6:00. Then she goes for this daughter.
The child knows better than to say a word beyond 'good evening'.
There is no accident, no losing track of the time, it is deliberate. It is done each and every week.
If the child came from a 'normal' home, then she would reprove Minny. But the child, growing in this horrible environment knows better. Knows that if she says a word, Minny will not pick her up at all, and she will have to find her way to the bus stop and ride the long way up to the behind the world where she lives.
So, she says nothing as she sits in the back seat and is dropped off as so much baggage. Her father will collect her sometime later that night. Much later.
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