Lessons from the Point #4

After taking the summer off from tutoring, because there was no one to tutor I was back for my first day earlier this week.  I was excited to be back and the kids remembered me, asked where I was all summer, and asked what I was up to.  During my 'vacation' I forgot what it was like to see/hear what these kids go through, experience, and live.  That all came back to me real fast on my second day back.

I was helping a third grader with his homework, teaching him what multiplication is (that's a story in itself), when a lady walked in.  She seemed somewhat loopy, but I thought nothing of it since I didn't know her (and in California I have met plenty of loopy people).  She kept telling lady who runs the Homework Room that she just needed her to look after her kids a little bit.  She brought in 3-4 kids none older than third grade.  After she left the HW room organizer approached me and told me how upset it made her when people do that.  "Do what?" I asked.  Her response in complete bewilderment told me all I needed to know.  "You didn't realize?  She was high out of her mind."  I should clarify that when I say high I'm not referring to marijuana, but hard drugs.  The parents and addicts that come through the Point are addicts and recovering addicts of heroin or crack most of the time.  It didn't even occur to me that she was high, because as I said I had never met her before so as far as I could tell that was how she was normally. 

That evening after all the kids had left the organizer asked me what I thought of teaching "addicted kids" (kids who were born addicted to hard drugs b/c of their mother's addictions).  I told her I didn't know, because I wasn't aware I had any experience with it.  It seems that all of the kids I worked with that day were children of addicts and were born addicted to drugs.  The most telling sign was that I would go over something repeatedly, but it didn't seem to stick.  I'm not talking about complicated concepts, but simple multiplication using physical representation. 

Knowing three couples who are all expecting it is very difficult to be at the Point and see the other extreme of parenting.  The three couples that we know are all wonderful people and will make amazing parents.  It makes me sad to see the innocent victims of such careless and wanton disregard for life.  No one can stop someone if they don't want to take care of themselves, but why drag someone so innocent and helpless down at the same time?