Instability

While I was working toward my teaching credential, I volunteered as a teacher's aide in a third-grade at a school not far from our house. One Thursday I arrived at school to find that we had a new student, named Pamela. Most of the kids in our class were eight years-old, Pamela was ten. Pamela was two grades behind in school and most education professionals and psychologists will tell you that she is at-risk of dropping out as soon as she legally can. In fact, it is almost a foregone conclusion. While I worked with Pamela, I was disturbed by how far behind even third-grade work she was. I spoke to the school psychologist about Pamela and I found out that her parents were food-service workers and that they moved around a lot. Pamela had never spent an entire school year in the same school. Pamela's teacher and I decided that I should spend some time working with Pamela one-on-one, since she was unlikely to benefit much from group instruction. So while the students did their math and reading, I worked with Pamela. I pulled together some drill work that Pamela could take home and practice on. I sent a note to her parents explaining what I expected of the lessons. I was shocked when some of the practice work came back with a childlike note, written by her father, explaining that they couldn't finish it because he didn't understand some of the work. I talked to the classroom teacher and offered to have Palmela's parents bring her to my house for tutoring in the evening, since they lived in an apartment building about a block away from us. She said that she would check it out, but Pamela's family moved away before she could. She was in our school for about a month. The reason that I was thinking about this today was that I received a phone call early this morning from one of the missing Sneed granddaughters. They aren't really missing, we just haven't seen them in about a year. Cletus Sneed, our adopted son, has been a homeless drug addict for some time. Recently, he has turned things around some and has been taken in by a man and his son who seem determined to keep Cletus on the straight and narrow. Cletus is working and not bugging me relentlessly for cash, so that's progress. These two little girls are eight and six and have spent their lives moving around. Cletus and his worthless girlfriend are the embodiment of the old line about having to move every time the rent is due. They have moved a lot. The girls are fortunate to have been taken in by their maternal grandmother when Cletus hit bottom and they had no place to live. That grandmother made sure that they were well taken care of and had some stability in their lives. Cletus brought the girls to our house today and I spent the afternoon with them. I have to say that even with all the turmoil that they have had in their lives, they are more well-adjusted than I would expect them to be. Unfortunately for these children, their mother puts her wants before their needs. She has found a new boyfriend and has taken the kids out of her mother's house and moved in with this guy. They don't stand a chance in this environment. This really pisses me off. I don't have any reason to think that they are being abused physically in any way, but being shuffled around so that Mom can have a warm body to hang on to, is just plain destructive to them. Kids really deserve better than a couple of bum parents. The lovely Mrs. Sneed and I do not become emotionally involved here because no good can come of these circumstances and nothing we can do will change a thing. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor