The bad guys are real
I was at work this afternoon & got a call from my husband who was home with the kids (as usual during the day - he works nights). In addition to our kids, he had a 5yo great-nephew & a 5yo neighbor boy, too. They were all out front, riding the bikes & the electric car up & down the sidewalk. He was inside. They are fine out front. They all know their limits. They all have a healthy fear of the streets. We believe it to be a safe neighborhood - smallish town - suburban. They play outside all of the time (well, we encourage them to get away from the TV & video games often & play outside, anyway). And, even though the back yard is fenced, we’ve let them play alone in the front ever since they showed that they knew how to stay away from the street.
They were riding all the way to the end of the block & back.
Anyway, Jim called to say that the kids had just come inside to tell him that, while they were about halfway up the block, a man in a truck had pulled over & was asking them to get in his truck.
Shelby says he ran away, then remembered that Annie was there & ran back to her. She was telling the guy ‘No’ & that she lived ‘right over there’.
I’m not sure where great-nephew & neighbor boy were. From what they remembered/said, it sounds like he was interested in Annie.
They ran inside & told Jim. He called me, wondering if he should call police. I said that I thought he should. So, he hung up & called them.
They came out & talked to the kids. I got home from work just as they were finishing up. They wanted the kids to ride around in the police car with them (and wanted Jim & I to go with), to look for any trucks that looked like the one that the guy was in.
We did. Neither saw anything, although we may have gotten some more detail from the kids on the ride.
And, nephew went home. Neighbor kid went home. We had dinner & then walked to Tastee Freez.
Now, they are in bed, trying to fall asleep. We tried not to make a big deal about it. Don’t want them to live in fear. They did the right thing. And, there are infinitely more good people in the world than there are bad people. There is an infinitely greater chance that they will make it through their childhoods perfectly fine than that something awful will happen to them. They know how to take care of themselves & be safe.
But, all I can think is… Just this afternoon, someone wanted to do something sexual or bad to Annie and Shelby & the neighbor kid & my great-nephew. Some guy was sitting there, hoping he was going to get lucky & do something awful to these kids. These kids. Right here. Not some random kid that you read about on the news & feel bad for in a distant kind of way. These real kids. And, if they hadn’t done the right thing or if the guy had been more aggressive, they might not be here right now. They would have been a news story themselves. Some twisted person got himself a thrill of excitement doing that. Someone actually thought of my actual real kids - these ones right here - as something that he would enjoy taking away from me & using for his own purposes whatever those might be.
It’s still hard to look directly at - this idea that it was so close, we came so close to something awful.
And, I know that I need to not let it tie me down, tie us down, change who we are. But, still, I don’t think I’m going to let them take the bus to school tomorrow. I have to stop by the office, anyway, to check the PTO inbox. I think I’ll just drive them there. And, stay on the playground until they go into school. And, make sure that Jim’s waiting at the bus stop when they get off in the afternoon. Right on time. Not a second late.
