Out My Window
Having a son of my own, I've come to recognize how much I appreciate children. They make me feel younger than my 32 years, in the sense that I have more energy and humor when I'm around young kids. As you can probably imagine, working at a university doesn't afford me many opportunities to see really young children around. There are, of course, various students who have children and people who work here sometimes bring their children in, but, by and large, kids aren't a fixture around these parts.
So it surprised me a little to look out my office window and see a young boy playing. He was probably about 7 years old, and he was with what looked to be an older brother. I didn't see any adults around, so he was probably coming to the campus to meet his parents. What really struck me when I saw him however, was that he was mooning me (actually, I don't know that the gesture was intended for me, but he was mooning in my general direction). Very quickly, I had to make a decision about whether or not to be mad. I could have rushed out and given the boy a "talking to," but I decided I wasn't ready to be that mature. He seemed to be doing it for his brother's amusement. I decided not to be mad. Yelling at the kid for doing something like that seems pretty extreme...I don't want to be that guy. That's a slippery slope, and before long, you find yourself yelling at kids in the neighborhood for walking on your grass, and that just leads to your house being egged on Halloween.
I'm just not ready to become that bitter.
Having a son of my own, I've come to recognize how much I appreciate children. They make me feel younger than my 32 years, in the sense that I have more energy and humor when I'm around young kids. As you can probably imagine, working at a university doesn't afford me many opportunities to see really young children around. There are, of course, various students who have children and people who work here sometimes bring their children in, but, by and large, kids aren't a fixture around these parts.
So it surprised me a little to look out my office window and see a young boy playing. He was probably about 7 years old, and he was with what looked to be an older brother. I didn't see any adults around, so he was probably coming to the campus to meet his parents. What really struck me when I saw him however, was that he was mooning me (actually, I don't know that the gesture was intended for me, but he was mooning in my general direction). Very quickly, I had to make a decision about whether or not to be mad. I could have rushed out and given the boy a "talking to," but I decided I wasn't ready to be that mature. He seemed to be doing it for his brother's amusement. I decided not to be mad. Yelling at the kid for doing something like that seems pretty extreme...I don't want to be that guy. That's a slippery slope, and before long, you find yourself yelling at kids in the neighborhood for walking on your grass, and that just leads to your house being egged on Halloween.
I'm just not ready to become that bitter.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home