The peace of the neighborhood was broken Friday afternoon. Bethany and I were on the front porch. I was watching the water fowl frolic. Bethany was investigating earthworms, and she discovered a millipede. When our ANGRY NEIGHBORS began an epoch battle in their driveway, the tranquility was shattered. The son and daughter were arguing over something, which escalated into screaming "cust" words of all sorts including F---, MF, b----, and some others. Lily started furiously barking at the front door. I was yelling be quiet. I started scooting Bethany inside, and she was oblivious to the situation. She didn't understand why we had to go in. The father came out and was yelling at his adult children. It was an intense situation. I was getting nervous about the whole thing, and went upstairs to call Brian to see what he thought I should do when the yelling hadn't stopped after thirty minutes. Brian had me look out the window before he was going to call someone. Just as I looked out the window three police cars arrived. I've never seen anything like it. It was just like on TV. :) The police dealt with the our ANGRY NEIGHBORS. While I had to debrief Bethany about what was going on. She wanted to know what the "cust" words were.
THE ANGRY NEIGHBORS have a grandson about Bethany's age who comes over to play on occasion. Brian had told Bethany earlier that he didn't want her playing with him very much because of the family situation. So, she was upset that she couldn't play with the little boy. We had another conversation about how we have to chose good people to be our friends. Our ANGRY NEIGHBORS have problems, which are far too complex to explain to a six year old. Bethany and I were having this conversation again in the backyard after the police left. She was not understanding the police arriving at the home, or why the people were yelling. I was doing my best to diffuse the situation. I was really struggling with how to explain all of this, when Bethany looked at me and she said, "Mom, I don't think that they know God and Jesus, or they would not be this way." Wow! Bethany is awesome. She still does not understand why we are not comfortable with her playing with the grandson. But she absolutely gets God's love. Maybe she gets it more than me, maybe she is right about wanting to play with the boy. I'm trying to protect her from bad things, and she is trying be friends with a child in a horrible situation. Maybe, I'm the one that isn't getting it.
The wisdom of children... It's so sad that so many families live with such chaos all the time. It's more common than any of us would think--I'm seeing more and more evidence through Habitat and counseling. I'm always trying to explain to Habitat folks that we can't control their neighbors and that even in "regular" communities there are neighbors who don't behave the way we wish they would. All of us need a dose of child-like love and acceptance.
ReplyDeleteWhat an episode! Hopefully there won't be many more outbursts from the angry neighbors. Maybe when the little boy wants to play, he could only play at your house with Bethany. We sort of have the same situation with our neighbor.
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