"Don't go breakin' my heart"

I'll tell you, it really does break my heart to see so much child abuse and neglect ona daily basis.  I'm sure there are multiple reasons for that.  The breaking point for me, and the deciding factor in my cutting of contact with my adoptive parents, was the way they were treating a little boy named billy at Christmas 1990.

They were so abusive to him, just like they had been to me.  I thought, no i can't do this anymore.

Today, a 4 year old on the bus begged his mother, repeated over and over:  "mommy please help me"

She couldn't hear him!  She had earbuds in and she was texting and she NEVER LOOKED AT HIM!

Eventually a male, presumably the father, helped the boy with the map he was holding.  Does this neglect break your heart too?

"Award for most out of control child"

last weekend i was in the starbucks with the family from hell.  Two parents on computers, texting, etc. and 2 boys.  One boy was 12 and the other 7.

the mother went to her car to get something.  The youngest boy karate kicked a basket of items that where suspended from the dairy case.  The items flew out of the case and remarkably back into the basket.  Nobody noticed but me.

Then, he closed his eyes and crashed into the displays.  yelling, i'm blind, can you hear me can you hear me.  Nobody noticed but me.

Mother is back, father is now in the store.  The boy climbs up into the windowsill and starts scooting along the windowsill behind the black curtains just scooting and scooting nobody stopped him.  Then he stood in the windowsill and smooshed his nose on the glass and rubbed it across the window.  He then went on to lick the windows.  Again no intervention.

He stood up in the windowsill, walked along in managing to stay behind the black curtain.

At this point my concern is that he'll lose his balance and go smashing through the glass to the outside, but nobody sees him or cares but me.

I finally point the behavior out to a barista, but she seemed annoyed that i brought it to her attention.  After about 5 minutes, another barista told him he wasn't allowed to climb in the windowsills!

All i can say is

I am still capable of being shocked.

"It takes a village to raise a child"

It's always a very tough call.  When is is appropriate for me to get involved when parents are being grossly negligent.

There have been three recent incidents where i knew i had to do something.  Well, 2 where i had to, and one where i wanted to.

The first incident was a want to.  A mother on the bus forbade her 3 year old daughter from going to the playground just because she lost her hair clip.  I was tortured about it, the girl started crying.  After a grueling 5 to 10 minutes, i was ready to disembark.  I quietly said "Mommy, please let your daughter go to the playground!"  (it was an exceptionally good day to play outside) she laughed , probably out of embarassment, then said "but she lost her hairclip!"

incident 2

A 3 yo boy was in the street where the bus easily would have pulled out and run him over.  The grandmother did not even notice.  I told the boy he needed to go to the sidewalk.

Incident 3 was today.  The 3 yo boy was with his always oblivious 2 parents on the bus.  The boy climbed behind the seat to lay on the wheel well!  The parents did nothing.  I waited , waited , waited.  About 2 minutes before the driver was due to pull off, i went up to him to alert him of the situation.  He told the boy that theboy needed to move, but he did not demand the boy sit in a seat. 

This made the mom angry at me well tough sh#$%

Like obama said when he went to new town connecticut:

THEY ARE OUR CHILDREN!