Influence

Tonight I was walking Roxy for her nightly dump. She's extremely regular. Almost like she's on Metamucil or something.

Anyhow, I was walking her when I saw this woman up ahead calling for two kids. It was obvious she was looking for them, but also obvious that they were close; I mean, this is small area of town and there was one house on the block that was hosting loads of kids for some summer fun. You could hear them a mile away.

Anyhow, one of the kids -- around 6 or so -- finally poked her head out of said house and said "Ma-Mère! Here we are!" She was so happy and excited.

And the woman staring screaming. Screaming how they hadn't asked her; screaming how she had been looking for them; screaming how she hadn't asked them and how no, they couldn't stay.

She continued screaming from the street at the house - and not moving to go get them or anything - until the mother at the house came ouside and asked her to come in to discuss it. By that point, I was halfway down the trail, so I don't know what happened. But when I came back out of the trail, the two little girls were sitting crying on the front step of the house, and the friend who lived there was yelling at them from the front window, calling them liars because she thought it was ok they were there.

The two girls, still crying,  kept saying "but you said it was ok, so we thought it was ok!" The clearly weren't grasping the concept of asking permission, but they were young. At this point, the girl who lived there -- who couldn't have been more than 8 herself -- stomped out of the house, pointed at them and said in no uncertain terms that they were no longer welcome. But because they were still waiting for their ma-mère to come out, they couldn't do anything but sit there and wait.

I am just so flabergasted at how this was handled. Granted, I have no kids of my own; but wouldn't it have better to get the kids, thank the mom, and on the way home explain to them/ get mad at them about not asking? Wouldn't it have been better to deal with it at home? On personal ground? What did this teach those girls? How will they remember this?

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.