6/29/09

Our Sons are Street Toughs

We’ve got a great park within walking distance of our house that the boys go to frequently. With Rose, me, Chief, anyone willing to take them. So it wasn’t out of the ordinary when, one night this week, I got home and asked the boys how the park was that day. This is the reply I got from my younger son:

“We smashed a kid!”

Wait. WHAT?

“Yeah!”

Rose and I were totally confused. Had Chief brokered their initiation into a local street gang? Had they been violent all along and we hadn’t noticed? WHAT THE HELL DOES “WE SMASHED A KID MEAN?!”

So Vincent explained that he had his bike and was riding around in the vicinity of some older kids. They were playing with him and must’ve been messing with a friend of theirs sitting outside the group and told Vincent, the impressionable 4-year old, to run over him with his bike.

“So I did.”

At this point, we had no idea what happened and asked where Chief was. We were assured he was, “right there,” which meant it couldn’t have been that big of a deal. We were also assured that the kid didn’t cry. We proceeded to gently tell Vincent that he shouldn’t ever smash any kids with his bike, no matter who tells him. We also vowed to each other to find out the whole story as this surely is painting Chief – who’s great with the boys - in the wrong light.

We'll get back to you on this one, friends.

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