After School

We live near a middle school, which despite the potential for problems, hasn’t been an issue. It means that you just don’t do certain things, like leave temptingly breakable items near the sidewalk. Pumpkins, old windows, bubble-wrap – you get the idea – just simple things to avoid. Overall, its a nice feature of the neighborhood. We have access to a playground, baseball diamond and basketball court. It also means we see the idiosyncrasies of being a child, like getting dropped off by parents 1 block from the school.

One thing I’ve noticed before is the groups of students waiting after school for parents to arrive. They’re usually clumped about, having fun, and usually playfully talking smack. Tonight I was walking home late and was surprised to see that there were still kids hanging out, some just walking home, even though it was after 8 p.m. It’s frightening to think that kids are still waiting that late, and I suppose a sad testament to life these days. The defense mechanism it must take to just hover for hours after school cannot make for a productive learning attitude, and just makes for rough childhood. At least they have a really big map of the U.S. to play on.

8 thoughts on “After School”

  3. Its actually a k-8 school, and most of these kids looked too young to be coming from a dance. Plus, they were all wearing backpacks.

  5. They all had detention for sinking the sub? Or maybe they all stayed after to watch some scrawny redhead get his ass kicked by the football team captain? (By the way, that never actually happened to me, I swear.)

  6. A sad testament to life? A rough childhood???? Latch key children turn out just fine… just ask me about it sometime. Have you really gone that “daddy soft” ?? Back in the day kids had to walk through 10 feet of snow… up hill both ways. I don’t think they have it that rough now. Some kids I used to know had to invite each other over for sleep overs, than sneak out at 1:00 in the morning to go out and cause trouble at the middle schools they used to go to….. maybe if their parents had left them alone a bit more they wouldn’t have had to sneak out all the time to find themselves.

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