And despite everything, I think believe in people.

Dream, in Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman”

Portrait shot in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Click for full view.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

She asks THE question:

It brings up this question: In a day and age with no Little Yellow Birds and no Expectations of behavior, do I continue to try and instill these old-fashioned values in my kids, or do I throw in the towel and give them a fighting chance amongst peers who have no respect for others, much less, themselves?

And this brings me to a topic that is eating at me since some time now (since it happened, actually). Here is the story [rant on]:

I have the same problem. Here is our personal conundrum:

We have 5 sets of direct neighbors (as we are in the middle of a settling). One family has one kid, Mark, who is 4. The other family has two kids. Their smallest, Alice, 5, plays with Mark. Their older boy, Peter, 8, plays, well, not with many kids, it seems. (Btw, I changed the names. They’re not their real names).

I cannot say I initially disliked them. They are very different than we are, rather uptight and closed. But I remained friendly and did all the necessary neighbor stuff: Invited them to garden parties, wrote them Christmas cards, gave them an Easter basket and so on (although none of this was ever reciprocated, but these are things I do not measure, so I don’t care).

The kids are EXTREMELY well behaved. As far as mute counts as well behaved. You seldom hear them talk at all, and surely not in the presence of adults. But. I am continuously finding out they are… mean. Just evil. I mean it.

So one day they had guests, and kids were playing in the garden. Joshua stood right next to them at the hedge and asked if he could come play. He was ignored. So he asked again, and the girl said: “You? No, why would we let YOU play along?” In THAT tone.

OK, kids do that sometimes. But: In this case, the parents saw and heard it all and did nothing. When Mark, the little one of the other neighbors, who also was in their garden, called for Joshua to come, they even called him back and berated him.

So Joshua ended up crying, standing next to the fence and crying and they did nothing. Said nothing.

I did nothing, either, at least not in that moment, because if I had intervened, I had killed someone. Or everybody. Oh my God, I was so furious.

The next day, I heard Alice say to the other neighbor’s boy: “Why should we play with him? He does not even have a swingset, just a boring see-saw. He has nothing fancy!”

The thing is, little Mark LIKES to play with Joshua and comes over, or Joshua goes there, but only when Alice is NOT around. When she is around, he completely adapts her behavior.

Some time later, when we built up the trampolin (which we had bought beforehand, just to clarify, btw.), whoops – there they were, wanting to jump.

So what do I do?

I decide that I am not like them, and let the kids jump, and give them ice cream. I briefly talked to Alice, though, when she came and wanted to jump, and said: “Do you recall how you did not want Joshua to play? That was not very nice. But we want to be nice to each other, so you can come and jump.”

And I take time and effort to explain to Joshua why we let them, because he asks me: “Why do we let them play here, they only come because of the trampolin, they don’t like me at all.” Which is, of course, totally correct.

I tell them that some people make more of an effort to be nice than others, and that I would prefer to be one of those people, and that sharing and friendliness is important in our family and home, and that we will therefore share and be friendly, even if they don’t and are not.

He accepts this. He also continues to play with Mark, although he often drops comments like “Neiner, neiner, you don’t have anything fancy.” (I mean, the boy is four, he imitates Alice, who is older and, it seems, positively deceiving). Mark is not a bad kid. But he is totally under Alice’s influence.

So these incidents happen more and more often. Joshua is not allowed to play with Alice and Peter. At all. Even Mark is more and more hostile.

What the HELL do I do? It really hurts to see them treat him like that, and I cannot really continue to explain this to him in any sensitive way, it seems. I tried to bring it up with the neighbors, but all I get is very polite nothingness. OK, I was not totally blunt about it yet (“Why are your kids behaving in such a mean and nasty way?”), because I have a feeling this will lead to nothing at all.

Do I continue to tell my son that we want to be good people, and be friendly and forgiving? I feel that I want to be this way, at least towards the kids. They, too, just imitate their parents’ uptight, narrow-minded, nasty behavior. It’s not really their fault.

But can I extend that to my kid and expect the same from him? What will it gain him? He’s got a huge heart and is quite empathic, but what will this gain him? Being the one who is always bullied? Should I rather tell him to fight back? And if I do, how do you fight back perfidy? If already a five year old girl knows how to talk mean behind someone’s back?

I cannot begin to guess how nasty people can be.

I told Joshua, for now, that there always will be those people who will try to make a difference in their lives, people who want to make the world a better place,  and those people who don’t care, who only think about themselves, and who poison the world with that bit by bit.

He nodded sagely and said: “OK, and isn’t it great that there are so many more people who care and want to be good?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I did not believe that anymore.

Make a Wish

Thank God it’s spring.

I liked that. There are quite some people I’d like to tell that.

Ich fürcht mich so vor der Menschen Wort.
Sie sprechen alles so deutlich aus:
Und dieses heißt Hund und jenes heißt Haus,
und hier ist Beginn und das Ende ist dort.

Mich bangt auch ihr Sinn, ihr Spiel mit dem Spott,
sie wissen alles, was wird und war;
kein Berg ist ihnen mehr wunderbar;
ihr Garten und Gut grenzt grade an Gott.

Ich will immer warnen und wehren: Bleibt fern.
Die Dinge singen hör ich so gern.
Ihr rührt sie an: sie sind starr und stumm.
Ihr bringt mir alle Dinge um.

—

Sorry, it’s not the same in translation, it has to stay in German.

For my beloved husband.

(Click for full view, as always)

Thanks to everyone for playing, it was a great experience.

Click thumb for large version.

The triptych is dedicated to

- Meerkat, The Smile (to the left)

- Kookaburra, Reading To The Crocodile (to the right)

- The whole bunch of you guys: It Was So Much Fun (middle)

- And Eurydice: It is a triptych!