All school year long I have been walking or driving our neighbor kindergartner to school and back. On days when I was sick, my husband took care of it. On days when my kids were sick and weren’t going to school, we still made an effort to remember our friend across the street. Even on days we had off from school for a religious holiday, we brought her to school and remembered to pick her up again at 3:00. Being reliable and consistent and trustworthy has been really important to me.
Which is why, on Tuesday this week, I felt like a complete failure when I brought the little girl home after school, and then left her stranded on her front porch, locked out of her house.
This was a real first for me, to draw the line. The problem started some time after the winter break. Perhaps because of the increased trust, or maybe just work schedule changes at their home, or perhaps because the aunt living with them is more mobile now that her baby is growing up, people have not really been home after school to look after this little girl. Sometimes an adult from the house (an uncle speaks a little bit of English) would mention this to me ahead of time, the day of, asking if she could stay after school at my house. Given the short notice, I agreed to watch her, thinking to myself, what else are they going to do? If no one is home, no one is home. Naturally I’ll take her in. Even if it means adjusting my schedule.
After a few times of this happening, however, it started to get old. I began to feel like I was being used. Especially on the days when they did not tell me in advance that no one would be home. One day in late winter, the little girl went into the house to go up the two flights of stairs to their apartment and I went back to my house only to hear her screaming for Council at the top of her lungs from her front porch. I rushed back outside to see her crying. No one was home. How could I not take her in?
Later, when an adult appeared to be home again, I sent her back. No words were ever exchanged between the adults about that. Why? They speak Spanish. I speak English. We have a hard time communicating.
Fortunately for all of us, this little kindergartner has gotten very good with her English during her year at school, and can do some modest translating between the adults. However, she does not have a big vocabulary. She lapses into Spanish on the important words. And she’s six. Discussing important issues like her own after-school care with her as the translator simply isn’t developmentally appropriate.
One day this week, my mother was visiting to take care of my children in the afternoon. She had to pick the kids up at the elementary school at 3:00. Our neighbor friend tried to convince my mother that no one was home and she needed to come to our house. But my mother told me that they could all plainly see someone’s face in the third-floor window. They pointed this out to our friend, who could only concede and go inside her house. This sort of crying-wolf stuff has baffled me in the past. How am I supposed to know if there is anyone really home or not? What the heck is going on over there? They have several adults in the home. Where do they all go? And is it so miserable that the girl needs to try to manipulate us into believing that she has to come over?
The girl tells me that her mother works. This spring the pace has picked up a lot and the mother is not around very much after school at all. She must have changed jobs sometime in March or April because for a while, she seemed to be around a lot. I saw her after school all the time walking out of the house or going somewhere. Then I started to hear this a lot from the girl: “My mother is working today. Can I come to you house after school?”
I began to feel as though I could have no schedule of my own or plan on getting anything accomplished in terms of my own work—which is from home. Conveniently for the neighbors. Things being as they are, I also have a few other neighbors who like to make themselves at home in my back yard after school to play with the kids and ride their bikes in the driveway. Sometimes this is fine. Other times I want to pull my hair out. Why? Because the adults in the homes don’t come out to see what their kids are doing. They don’t come out to see if I’m alright. They don’t try to say hello or talk with me. And maybe I’m hiding from them, too.
Anyway, this week I’d had enough. Left the girl stranded on her own porch. My thinking was, I have to draw the line at some point—and if I never get a chance to talk with the parents about this, then the message will have to be sent some other way, through my actions. Of course I peered out at her through my windows the entire time she sat on the porch. I watched the middle-school kids come home from school—the ones who live on the first and second floors—and ask her some questions and the little girl gestured toward my house. “What?” I muttered to myself. “What, am I your day care lady who threw you out? Sheesh.” Eventually the girls on the first floor took her in—or so I think, since I didn’t actually see. I hoped to myself that she had not been abducted. Legally, perhaps I would have been responsible. The horror!
At last, it occurred to me that I might turn to someone at the school about this situation. They have English and Spanish speakers and they know the family. What a revelation! So I talked with an available kindergarten teacher after school yesterday, someone who does not teach the little girl’s class but who knows her and sees me pick her up every day. I told her about the situation and she suggested that she ask someone to write a note in English and Spanish to give to the family. The note could say that I’m happy to take her to and from school but that I am not avaiable to provide after-school care. That sounded good.
This morning the little girl’s kindergarten teacher—who speaks Spanish and English—and who also teaches my son—caught me before school to ask about the situation. She scolded me lightly for not bringing it to her earlier. “This is really important,” she said. “We need to know about this.” She went on to tell me that the girl’s mother had come to the classroom three times, unannounced, to visit and generally hang out in the room without the teachers’ consent. She told the teachers that she just wanted to see how her daughter was doing. The teachers welcome parents in the classroom but need to be able to offer appropriate visiting days and times. This parent was visiting at not-very-good times and didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t working for the teachers. Plus, the teacher told me, this mom does not read. In English or in Spanish. So sending a note is not going to help communications. The only way to reach her is by phone or in person.
Thank goodness the teacher caught that detail because there is no way I would have known about that. She offered to call the mother. She said she tried to call this morning but no one answered. She asked if I had seen any adults. Yes, I said. I always see the dad when he brings the little girl over. I guess he wasn’t picking up the phone this morning.