A Country Between Quotes

“We were surrounded by convents, shops, and vegetable stalls, with no other houses on the street but ours, and so Joseph had no other children to compete with for attention. He was a chance for all of those men to have a child to dote on, a momentary stand-in for their own children, amid the heat and exhaustion and tension of the workday, an opportunity for tenderness. Still, we could only handle so many camels. One afternoon, the three of us returned home from a walk around the neighborhood, piles of plush sheep and chocolates and plastic key chains collected in the basket beneath Joseph’s stroller. At the front door, Abu Hossam reached to hand Joseph date bread. Frédéric cut him off. He had reached his limit. “Please stop,” he begged. “Otherwise he’ll be spoiled, and he’ll think that he can have whatever he wants, whenever he wants it.” But then Abu Hossam looked at Frédéric with a rare expression of reproach. “This is between me and your son,” he insisted, and handed Joseph the date bread. Humbled, Frédéric went inside. Later that afternoon, Abu Hossam felt the need to explain himself. He told Frédéric, “If you give a child something each time you see him, then he will grow up thinking that giving things away is the most natural thing in the world. Giving children gifts is how we teach them generosity.”
― Stephanie Saldana, A Country Between: Making a Home Where Both Sides of Jerusalem Collide