LETTER
FROM A BOY
"It is too late for us because the damage has been done, and our child has
a record...but maybe if we share this letter it will help
other parents.
Thank you
very, very much."
PARENTS OF A CHILD
Dear Folks:
Thank
you for everything, but I am going to Chicago and try to start some kind of new
life."
You
asked me why I did those things and why I gave you so much trouble, and the answer is easy
for me to give you, but I am wondering if you will understand.
Remember
when I was about six or seven and I used to want you to just listen tone? I remember all the nice things you gave me for
Christmas and my birthday and I was real happy with the things for about a week at the
time I got the things, but the rest of the time during the year, I really didn't want
presents. I just wanted all the time for you
to listen to me like I was somebody who felt things too, because I remember even when I
was young, I felt things. But you
said you were busy.
Mom you are a wonderful cook, and you had everything so clean and you were so tired so
much from doing all those things that made you busy, but you know something, Mom? I would have liked crackers and peanut butter just
as well--if you had only sat down with me a little while during the day and said to me:
"Tell me all about it so I can maybe help you understand.
And when Donna came I couldn't understand why everyone made so much fuss because I didn't
think it was my fault that her hair is curly and her teeth so white, and she doesn't have
to wear glasses with such thick lenses. Her
grades were better, too, weren't they?
If Donna ever has
children, I hope you will tell her to just pay some attention to the one that doesn't
smile very much because that one will really be crying inside. And when she's about to bake six dozen cookies to
make sure first that the kids don't want to tell her about a dream or a hope or something,
because thoughts are important too to small kids even though they don't have so many words
to use when they tell about what they have inside them.
I think that all the kids who are doing so many
things that the grownups are tearing their hair out worrying about are really looking for
somebody that will have time to listen a few minutes and who really and truly will treat
them as they would a grownup who might be useful to them. You know, polite to them. If you
folks had ever said to me, "Pardon me" when you interrupted, me, I'd have
dropped dead. If anybody asks you where I am,
tell them I have gone looking for somebody with time because I've got a lot of things I
want to talk about.
Love
to all.
*From The
kansas City Star |
