I've been riding the bus to and from work for over five months, and I've seen a lot of people come and go. Over the past month, I occasionally see a single mother with three small children, two boys and a girl, get on board.
Sometimes I see them in the morning, and other times its the evening. Most of the time, the mother is stressed out and snaps at the kids. One day, she didn't have enough money to cover her bus fare, and the driver graciously let her have a ride.
I saw them this morning, and heard one of the boys, not older than four years, say something to the mother that just tore at my core.
My dad hasn't got a court date yet. When is he going to get one?
I don't know the full context of the father's plight, but I suspect it's because he's run afoul of the law. Four years is too young of an age for someone to learn about the ways of the criminal justice system.
Almost all kids go through a phase where it seems that just about every aspect of a parent's conduct is grounds for embarrassment. Most of the time it's all perception. It's my hope that I never give my daughters a real excuse to be ashamed of me.
