Guest blogger Samara Tilkens Postuma on trust in our society…

A few weeks back, I ran to Kohls with my almost two year old son, Henry. I’d been looking for some new pictures for our living room wall and was soon engrossed in comparing, looking at different ideas and the current sale. H was busy as ever trying to climb in and out of his stroller and I finally seemed to be making some decisions.

Then reality hit and I realized that it was pretty much going to be impossible to push him in the stroller and carry the heavy pictures I’d picked out. And by now he’d started losing his patience as well.

We stepped in the main aisle, me, trying to push him while balancing the two pictures on the stroller. A woman walked up and offered to help me.

“Umm, that’s ok.” I said.

“I’m all done anyway, I can help you.”

And finally I said yes, letting her push Henry up to the front while I carried the pictures.

When we approached the checkout, I thanked her over and over and she surprised me again.

“Do you want me to wait and help you out to your car?”

“Oh no, that’s ok.” I said feeling nervous inside.

“I really can, I have four kids at home.”

The cashier and I looked at each other and I agreed to allow this kind woman to walk me out to my car. (At least I’d have a witness?)

I have to admit I was initially skeptical. Why did she want to help me? What if she was a crazy? A kidnapper? A murderer? (Though she definitely looked like a normal mom to me.)

Is this is what our society has turned into?

Recently I learned of a new change and requirement for parent volunteers in our school district.

All parent volunteers will be required to submit background checks in order to volunteer, attend field trips and in a sense, be involved in their childs education.

I honestly can see both sides of the issue here. We do need to protect students by keeping dangerous people out. We need to make sure those that are coming to help are really coming to help and not to seek out vulnerable students.

However at the same time, it makes me really sad that this is what it has come to. Providing a background check to the school to prove that you are safe and trustworthy enough to help in your childs classroom. Nevermind the added responsibility on the already overworked office staff who will now need to keep track of exactly which parents can and can not do certain things.

It just makes me sad to think of the people who might not volunteer because of the time and expense of going through a background check, nevermind those with traffic violations or the like who might not want those exposed to school personnel.

I’m seriously torn on this issue because of my own beliefs that most people are genuinely good but also the belief that this is the world we live in and there are some people that do want to cause harm.

Am I just that naive?

Samara Tilkens Postuma
http://simplicityinthesuburbs.blogspot.com

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 8:10 am and is filed under Guest Bloggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.