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Troubling

Something happened Monday that I can not let go.  To be honest, the quiet weekend, the drunken Sunday and the excellent to Monday overshadowed something, but given  time to think it's a true reflection of our society.  Not a very pretty one either.

As people know, I run an after school program.  For years, we had a relatively lax dismissal policy, but one day a mother came to pick her child up and he wasn't there.  I knew he went home with another mother, but couldn't remember which one.  With no sign out sheet, there was nothing to check.  As the mother became more upset, I started to doubt whether I saw him leave with someone or had imagined it.  Roughly an hour and forty five minutes later, after calling the police, searching every classroom and under every desk in the school, the mother slapped her hand on her hip and said "I'm a dope, he had a play date today."  This fear subsided, but the anger didn't.  This would never have happened twenty years ago, definitely not thirty and things were a lot safer back then. 

Today we have a sign out sheet and every class there is a parent or two who forget to sign.  This week a mother came 15 minutes early and tapped me on the shoulder and asked for the sheet.  It was on the other side of the gym, so I said I confirmed the mother's name and told her i would sign out.   She thanked me and was on her way.  Then another child's mother came early.  She ran and gathered his stuff and on her way out, she said "I'm taking him two minutes early....I signed him out."  I thanked her and she was on her way.  As the rest of the parents came for dismissal I grabbed the sign out sheet and signed the first kids mother's name and then looked at the sheet.  There was no other signature.  The rest of the parents gathered their kids, said their pleasantries, grabbed the clip board and signed it.  No questions asked. 

So here's what has me angry.  The mother who said she signed and didn't, never had to lie.  She could have made eye contact, let me know she was leaving early and said anything.  Anything would have been fine.  She didn't though.  She lied.  She lied right in front of her kid.  Ironically had she not picked him up early, I was going to speak to her about her son's behavior.  Her son, the only one of 17 kids who misbehaves week in and week out.  One of three kids in the class who haven't known me for at least two years previous to this one.  A kid who sat out almost as much as he played that day.  Now I don't know if it's worth it. Why waste my time and energy telling a parent about her child's behavior, when she doesn't even care about his safety.  The sheet is there for his protection. For his well-being.  Apparently it's not important to her.  To top the whole story off.  She took the wrong kid's backpack.  Not even her own child's.  Like I said, troubling.

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