Homeless

A homeless man just walked into the Starbucks I'm in. At least I think he is homeless. He smells bad. He has on old clothing that he is wiping down with a napkin, because he is wet from the rain. He has some sort of crocheted wrap on his leg. He has a backpack and an apple juice with him. He just went and sat outside. He is talking to someone...I think himself because I don't see anyone else. He is someone's son. Being a mom, that's the first thing that goes into my mind. I'm pretty sure before I had kids I didn't think about that so much. But now I can't get that thought out of my head. Someone about 65 years ago gave birth to him. They were probably thinking about what they would do with him. Play, teach... Or maybe they were upset and worried about their child. Maybe they gave him away to a family that could care for him. Maybe they kept him and didn't know how to care for him well. No matter what, I am sure that at one point someone thought about him. And now he is looking at me weird and kind of scaring me. But, my point... Our perspective on EVERYTHING changes as we become parents. So we get in the car and I say to my son, jack, "did you notice that man in there? I'm pretty sure he is homeless." Jack says, "How do you know?" I say, "well, that's his bike with all those bags on it." He says, "you know, if he wasn't so big and smelly and scary looking, I would just invite him right into our car." Sweet boy, but being his mother, I went into a very serious talk about how he could be a bad man, and so instead of helping him directly we could give money to charities that help people like him, St Vincent de Paul Society, shelters, food pantries, etc. I hate ruining my kids' innocence and sweet nature by teaching them a truth that really sucks. But, as I said, the perspective changes when you are a mom.