Have You Had an Experience Like This?

The other day I was walking through the North City Mall on my way back to my car. Two pre-schoolers, a boy and a girl, came running in my direction. The girl tripped and fell near me on the hard floor then lay crying. I slowed my pace, hoping that the girl’s parent(s) would quickly materialise to comfort her but that did not happen.

With children of my own, and numerous grandchildren, my natural instinct as a man was to rush to the child’s side, gather her up and try and soothe her hurt. But I didn’t.

A picture had come into my mind of how other shoppers might misconceive it and of how the parent or parents of the girl might react on their belated arrival at the scene. I did not want to be made to appear like a child molester for an innocent act.

I walked on by, feeling dreadful that the child was still uncomforted and that social inhibition had stopped me from helping her.

Then I heard the mother calling out for the child to pick herself up. She was in no apparent hurry to provide nurturing care.

It’s a sad, sad world.