What you are your parents like?
There are times in Bolivia when I am reminded that things here are SO different from back home, and in the ´first world´. For example, as much as we do have homeless people in London, you would never see an 8 or 9 yr old roaming the streets sniffing a glue bottle. Or a mother giving her baby, who lives on the streets with her a sniff of her glue, to stop the baby from crying of hunger! There are norms that just dont take place and norms here that are unfortunately just expected.
I´m sad to say I have never seen so many abandoned and abused children in my life since coming here..(and other countries). I´m not saying that we dont have abandoned and abused children in the UK..we do..and I´ve worked with some of them! But we certainly dont have cases on the scale that I have seen here…nor do we appear to accept it as a cultural norm..as I´ve sadly seen many do here (that includes domestic violence as well..which ultimately adds to the mental abuse of the child in my opinion!)
This post was inspired by a conversation I had a couple of weeks with a street kid. I was asked a question. It´s one I´ve been asked before, but as my work with kids on the streets has decreased somewhat, I almost forgot about the impact it has on me. I was with an older kid as we waited for another ex street kid in a bus station, he most definately a child of the streets and I can only pray her decides to leave one day and make a better life for himself! We were killing our time with small chat and I was happy to see this kid who has shown some violent streaks in the past (due to the consumption of crack cocaine) calmer and rather intrigued about my life in the UK. He asked me a number of questions about my family, then he dropped the familiar question that I always pause to answer as it makes m ´wake up´ and realise what kids here suffer daily, and that many of us have no need to complain!
As we sat making small talk about my life and family he said, and what are you parents like then? Are they good parents or bad parents? I had a number of thoughts run through my head, some personal, so general, and I almost thought what kind of a question is that! But I was really ´touched´ by it also as I thought of the amount of people in the UK who may well answer that question as BAD, simply because they didnt get the latest XBOX or had a bit of discipline in their childhood! I thought of how many of the kids here could really answer that question as BAD…and thinking about the amount that I know alone, was quite upsetting!
I thought about my own ´problems´ and how even I , at times in my life may have turnt around and said BAD..but when I reminded myself who I was talking to, and how so many kids like him are on the streets due to abuse, abandonment, alcoholism and simple poverty my answer wasnt just good..but VERY good!
I´m not sure how this street kid took my answer, and I dont suggest he would never have heard of good parents, but I really hope at the very least one day if he becomes a parent, he´ll model himself after the many good parents in the world (and Bolivia!)
So maybe you are a young child reading this, or a person who may have a few ´issues´ with their parents and how they raised you. In light of the severe consequesces of the actions of many ´bad´ parents I implore you to give thanks for the parents that you have/had. Maybe they didnt do everything right, but how many of you can say that you ended up living on the streets addicted to drugs because of them!? I doubt many…
Well thats enough rambling from me. I just havent forgotten how that question made me reflect and feel and wanted to share it with you!
Till next time blogging pals….
