There’s Hope for Today’s Youth!
The other day we went to Walmart to look for cheap portable DVD players for our vacation. Ben often gets really fidgety in the cart so I just let him wander around, while, of course, I keep an eye on him.
He’s gotten into the funny little habit of dancing in public. First it’s a little dance, but if some random shopper passes by and comments, he’ll dance again, much longer and more elaborately. He’s a little ham, my little guy is!
We were in the electronics section and Ben found the videogame demo section. You know, the place where they have controllers set up and kids stand for hours playing for free? The controller was just within Ben’s grasp, but he had to get up on his tippy toes to touch it. He really didn’t care whether or not he was controlling anything on-screen, it was the controller he was interested in. I just stood on the side and watched him reach to grasp the buttons.
Soon, an boy came by, about 9 or 10 years old. He was on those shoe/roller skate combo things that I find really intriguing. He rolled up to Ben and the controller and I was expecting him to nudge Ben out of the way so he could play. But to my surprise, he stood there and bent the controller holder so it was more accessible for Ben to play with. At first, Ben thought he wanted to play with it so he stood aside, but when the boy just stood there and pointed to the controller, Ben cautiously went back and played with the buttons as the boy held it for him.
Ben then ran away to check out other things, and the boy went back to his shopping (or waiting for this parents). Ben went back to the controller, and once again, the little boy came by to help him out. Ben tinkered around a bit with it as the boy watched and held down the controller. When Ben was done, he looked up at the boy and did his best 5 second dance. The boy laughed and said, “You’re a funny little baby!” and walked away.
The next day, Ben and I went to go watch Dave play at his company softball game. There was a boy there, about 13 or 14, who was there to watch his mom play. The three of us were in the dugout, and didn’t speak for the first several innings. But Ben was so entertaining with his yelling and running around, I could tell that the boy was warming up to him. What finally broke his cool exterior was when Ben did his little hand dance - the boy laughed out loud. After that, he played with Ben, putting a baseball in his hood and making sure he didn’t run off onto the field. Ben liked the boy so much that he raised his arms to him, asking him to pick him up. The boy looked at me confused, and I said, “He wants you to pick him up.” He looks surprised, and gingerly picked up Ben and sat him on his lap. Ben spent the next several minutes sitting on the boys lap and watching the game. It was cute.
There are many times when I see the behavior of kids and cringe, scared that they’re going to hurt my son (like the kid who stepped on Ben’s hand at the playground the day of the softball game) or be a bad influence on him. It’s times like the ones above, though, that make me feel a little better about letting my little boy into the big, big world. Not all kids were meant for the super-nanny…some of ‘em turn out quite alright!
That changed last weekend. Fatima had been wanting to watch “Stardust” for the last several weeks, and I finally had some free time to go out and see the movie. Truthfully, based on the commercials and my Claire Danes issues I really didn’t feel like watching the movies. I’m a Neil Gaiman fan, so I did read the book, but it was so long ago that I really didn’t remember much about the story outside of it being about a man hunting for a falling star, which ends up being a woman. But Fatima wanted some quality time, and I admit, I was curious. 
