Cultural Differences

Freedom of expression is a double-edged sword, and we've noticed it particularly here.

Ozzie youths are extremely articulate and confident and very at ease with themselves.

At church, we've seen some of them doing their own thing during worship time i.e. putting their feet up on the pew in front of them, clowning around, making faces at the musos (musicians). Probably all done lightheartedly, but nevertheless distracting to people around them, not to mention behaviour that's hardly appropriate in church. We would certainly be horrified and ashamed if we ever caught Beth developing such tendencies.

Yesterday, Beth was outside playing with the neighbour's kids. I watched them from my doorway as they hunted for stuff on the empty plot of land across the road.

First D was whining about not having a stick, then her sis, perhaps to placate her, reached up and pulled off the topmost branch from a sapling that was growing on the plot, and they started whooping and cheering at her cleverness. Then before I knew it, C uprooted the ENTIRE TREE and started prancing around with it, as if highly pleased with her feat.

I was so appalled at this wanton act of destruction that I was speechless for a while. I hate telling off someone else's kids, but I was the only adult present and something had to be done before I became an accomplice by omission. So first, I explained to D (who was with me) why what her sis had done was wrong. She tried to explain that C was trying to get her a bigger stick, or something like that. Then I summoned Beth from across the road and told her the same thing. She too tried to justify C's act. Isn't that interesting?

Finally, I confronted the culprit herself. She defended her act, saying they wanted to build something but couldn't find any sticks of suitable size/length. I said she could have picked those that had already fallen on the ground, or played some other game. How could she just destroy a living thing like that? If everyone did what she did, there would be no trees left in Australia etc etc.

As I explained things to C, trying all the while to control my shock that an 8 y.o. could be capable of such a deed, I was highly conscious that these were someone else's kids and might have been raised with different ideas about Nature and living things.

But I also knew the power of peer influence, and I didn't want Beth to grow up thinking this was the right thing to do, or to blindly imitate others, or that the most convenient way to get something she wanted was necessarily the right way.

A while later, the girls' mum came out and the girls told her what had happened. I was hugely relieved when she told C in a very firm but calm tone that what she'd done was wrong, hadn't she told her before many times not to do such things, she hadn't given the sapling a chance to live, it could have grown into a tree that could give shade to people and a place for birds to rest etc etc. Whew. At least we're on the same page.

It looks like while I'm deathly afraid of dealing with other people's kids, God has deliberately placed me in the path of 2 precocious ones (add my own, and that's a trio of potential trouble!). Perhaps He wants me to confront and overcome my fear and at the same time grow into a mentor to little ones.

God grant me the wisdom and courage to do what's right!