Gypsy Child

My son bought a set of $250 speakers that can be returned in 30 days. His plan is to return them in 25 days. He calls me up when he is leaving the store to tell me how he was shaking when he left the store. I ask if he feels like he stole something and he said yes. He feels guilty because his intent when he bought it was to return it. He then goes on to say he is going to do that every 30 days and he will always have nice speakers for free. Is he serious, I doubt it? His mind is just checking out the possibilities. Life as a 17 year old with his own transportation and a credit card. I love the way his mind keeps spinning and thinking all these fresh ideas. They may not all be good ideas but I like the fact he is being creative.

He ask me why I am not telling him what he did is not ok. He said grandma would be telling him all sorts of reasons. I thought about this and I would have to say it is because I trust him to figure it out mostly on his own because I trust his intent is good. He is one of the most conscience people I know. He never wants to cause harm to others. He can not phantom why other do cause harm, even the thought of a paper clip attached to a rubber band on the back of someone’s neck is insane to him. (He sees this in school)

I told him he has morphed back into the 4 year old who was told he could not take the coconut out of the national park. When the ranger was not looking he grabbed up the coconut that was half his size, his eyes big as a cow and his hair wild from the ocean, squatted down a little low so as not to be seen and ran like crazy toward the park exit. We were near the exit laughing at him. When he reached us we gently took the coconut and told him he had to leave it here where nature could do what it wanted with it, not man. He felt a bit defeated but did not resist. This can bring a smile to my face anytime I think of it.

Not Us

My daughter goes to an Avid meeting at her school-some kind of program to help them get into AP classes. I have to carry her there for a 6:35pm meeting with a teacher she spent a whole period with earlier in the day.

Fine, I can do it and so can she.

The school office is full of stoic parents with their stoic teens. Very quiet. My daughter tells me how she wants to go get food since she is early. I ignore her and sit down. She sits too. We become stoic.

A teacher comes into the room and calls her name. He looks friendly, actually all the teachers doing the interviews look fresh and friendly as if they are enjoying themselves. My daughters back out in about 10 min.

In that time I speak with the parents whose daughter also goes back about the same time as mine. I ask them if they know what’s involved with this Avid program. By the end of the 10 min we are best friends. They live off same road we live off. The mom says maybe we can share rides. We exchange names and she shakes my hand.

Walking to the car,  my daughter tells me the teacher ask the hardest question, “What does she like most about school?” She tells me it was so hard because she kept thinking he would not like her real answer, the one she did not give him. “How unbelievable hot the guys are at school, or how hot the visiting guys on various sports were”.

We laughed.

I am in support for Madlyn Primoff.  I just read someone’s comment about how the school bus has kids walk to school if they live up to 3 miles from school. I think it might be 2 miles where I live but you get the point.

AZbunny wrote “My husband has nothing but contempt for his father who did this exact same thing to him, along with a lot of other physical and psychological abuse. Leaving your child by the side of the road IS psychological abuse and this mother should be investigated to see what other abuses her children have suffered. I doubt this is THE one and ONLY incident.”

We need to look at the whole pic to decide what is right or wrong, this takes common sense, something many are lacking. Of course this action done with HATE, taken too far with other incidents to go along with it, can have some scarring. But that is where the common sense comes in. People are judging just the action alone of letting kids walk home as evil. I believe it is NOT!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

My first thought when I heard about Madlyn Primoffs crime was “Hey, I’ve done that”.

Here’s what she did:
She ordered her two daughters, 10 and 12, to get out of the car and walk home. They were three miles from home.

Here’s what I did:
Driving home halfway down on our long dirt road, my son was whining and would not stop. I stopped the car and made him get out. He was four. I slowly drove home while he cried a safe distance from car. My plan was to let him back in the car shortly but he fell in a mud puddle therefore he had to walk whole way home. This was not pleasant for him but not torturous either.

Here’s where she lived:
White Plains, NY in an upscale suburb

Here’s where I lived:

In the countryside of St John, Virgin Islands

This is what I think of Madlyn Primoff:

She was a frustrated mother who decided to try something new. It was a little radical but not a crime. Her daughter over reacted and is probably sorry or not. The mother probably would of felt she finally took a hold of the situation and taught them they do not run things, or not.  (This would have been if the police did not become involved). The kids were probably in a safe neighborhood and very well knew their way around, or not.

This is what I think of me:

I was calm when I put my son out of the car. I watched him with love and not anger. I washed him up and loved him up when we got home and never apologized for my action. I was very happy the next time he started his whining while I was trying to drive and I said “Do you want to walk” and he instantly stopped the flow of tears and stopped the whining.

This is what I know of Madlyn’s girls:

Nothing!

This is what I know of my son:

He is a well-adjusted, delightful (yes delightful) 17 yr old that loves to hear the story of when he walked home covered in mud.

As a side note, I would like to thank Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids, Mothers handbook, , Parenting with Duck Tape for their inspiration.

should I stay or should I go

Growing up in St John has many advantages and disadvantages. I always felt it was an ideal place to be until your teenage years. Some teens may argue with me about this and actually I could come up with a few good arguments myself. This would be me arguing with myself.

The beach is a great daytime activity for anyone of any age. There are walks on the beach and trails close to the beach for young and old; there is windsurfing, sailing, and body surfing. Depending on the weather there is surfing, skim boarding, and kite surfing. When you add an actual boat into the picture then you have dinghies, motorboats, jet skis and sailboats. A boat can pull you by ropes to wake boards and ski. You can go spear fishing and scuba diving. 

A lot of this takes money and if the moneys not there these kids still find a way; they work for the vendors for trade of their boats, they find friends with boats or they just hang out at the beach.

Most the high schools have football, basketball, and baseball, cross country running and volleyball. Most kids go to St Thomas for high school. There is one school that goes up to twelfth grade, the Gift Hill School. This was not there when my oldest two were of high school age. It went to twelfth grade about six years ago.

The out of school sports programs come and go. Some years there is an active soccer or baseball program, some years nothing. This varies depending on who’s living on the island and willing to put in a lot of time. It is all put together independent of any state or school program.

The two longest lasting programs on St John are KATS- Kids At The Sea and the Steel Pan programs. The steel pan programs happen both in the school system and out. KATS is a sailing program where the kids, ages 8 to 18, get together every Saturday for a few hours in the morning and learn water safety skill, learn how to row a boat and then learn to sail first with Optimus then Lasers then Sunfish.  Volunteers run this.  Both programs have done so much for so many.

There also is the 8 Tuff miles race that happens every February. This is for all ages. The youth on the Island like to take it up as a challenge. Some just run it that day while others will train for it. There are three shorter runs a few weeks and then a few days prior to prepare runners for the big day. 

You can see the daytime activities are plentiful. The real problem arises at night. Your choices are pretty much either hang out at a friend’s house or in Cruz Bay. I shouldn’t forget the basketball courts. There is one in Cruz Bay that sometimes is closed due to water, and another in Coral Bay that is sometimes closed due to the owners (Moravian church) fearful of being sued. 

There are a lot of drugs and alcohol on the island. It is not unrealistic to say some of the parents are the problem here. Some of the non-local parents first came to St John to escape something and with that escape came the use of alcohol or/and drugs to aid the escape. Some of the local parents never got to escape anywhere so they use alcohol or/and drugs to do just that. I did see many fall into this type of escape and many not be able to get back out. I also know many parents that are not into any of this.

It is not uncommon to see a 16 year old at a bar hanging out. All ages are allowed in the bars. They do check ID when you buy the drink but often a friend who is 18 will buy the drink and pass it over. Eighteen is the legal drinking age.

This is not to say they all do it. Some bypass the alcohol/drug activity. I know a few that avoid the whole scene by not being very social in the evening. They run around like crazy during the day and you never see them at night. Others are very social in the evening and just choose to refrain from drugs and alcohol.

Advantages: beach/water activities, being such a small island causes all ages to interact and get along, the small size of the island also causes many to have your back, a lot of culture still intact.

Disadvantages: so small you can get bored of doing the same thing over and over, not as many cultural activities (example: theater, museums, large stadium sports, theme parks).

I have to say that since living in the states for the last four years we rarely do any of these cultural activities, they are either too expensive or too long of a drive. The kids seem to be occupied with school, after school sports, movie and hanging out at shopping malls. The beach seems to only happen for those fortunate to live very close until they get their drivers license. My son who fishes does that anywhere there is water.

I have lived in the states and on the Island of St John with my teens. As you can see, the argument as to which is better is an ongoing one. If a child is vulnerable he will find trouble anywhere. If a child is solid he will stay out of trouble anywhere.

When my son was getting into lots of trouble in St John, I sent him to the states to a Quaker boarding school. It was a 130 acre forested school where they gardened and lived in cabins. The Quaker philosophy is peace. Every day started with group silence then into group discussion. It opened up his world and made it a lot bigger with more possibilities. Getting off the island to travel and see different cultures and meet different people can do this, weather it is one week or a few years.

My suggestion to parents of all types of teens would be: steer them toward wholesome activities and keep loving them.

What does your child dream of, what do they fear? It really is such an individual thing. Keep paying attention to them even when you feel they are old enough to handle things on their own. Everyone wants to be noticed, keep noticing them and guiding them when you can.

So what did this argument accomplish?

• A reminder to keep paying attention? 
• The fact that it is a very individual decision?
• The realization that in the end you might just make the wrong decision? 
• The realization that in the end you just might make the right decision?

All the above.

By the way, what were we arguing about?