This seems to pop up on Nextdoor quite a bit.
Every so often there's a thread about some kid or kids that brutally assaults someone, often a senior citizen with a random act of kindness. Of course someone wants to make a real carnival over it and reward them publicly.
They help someone catch an escaped pet. They jumped in and help someone. Maybe they help someone keep their groceries from spilling out of a flimsy bag or somethhing.
Maybe they help a woman mow the hill part of her lawn or change a tire for somebody's poor old grandmother stuck on the road somewhere.
They do this simply for the same reason I did and sometimes still do things of that nature. People do things like that simply because it's the right thing to do. A LOT of kids that do stuff like this do NOT want to be recognized. They do it and just want to go about their business quietly and unrecognized.
Why? Because a lot of kids don't want a Goodie-Two-Shoes jacket pinned on them. Can't say as I blame them. I sure the hell didn't want one pinned on me when I was a kid. A rat jacket was definitely out of the question. Snitches get stitches.
In a lot of circles a Goodie-Two-Shoes label is to be seriously avoided. You get 'the business' from your friends and your youthful integrity comes into question. The guys start wondering if in addition to being a Goodie-Two-Shoes if you are also a rat. It can get rather uncomfortable.
One time one of the neighborhood little kids jumped into water over his head and I fished him out. It really wasn't much. I grabbed him and shoved him a couple of feet to the edge of the dam and he hauled himself out and that ended that. Unfortunately his mother saw the whole thing. It was a Saturday and I knew that the second that woman got home she was going to call my parents and make a big public to-do over it. She had a big mouth. Most likely she'd have carried on like I swam two miles out, dragged him to shore while fighting sharks, sea serpents and giant man-eating squids the whole time. All I had done was give the kid a shove.
That was the LAST thing I needed. The guys would never let me hear the end of that one.
I took off for home like a scalded cat and went straight to Dad who was in the process of fixing a blown fuse. He had already figured out what had overloaded the frail circuits of the old house, unplugged the offending devices, replaced the fuse and was just finishing up telling the womanfolk, of which there were four, that one can't run three blow dryers, a space heater and a ten horsepower electric mixer on the same 15 amp circuit.
My kid brother and I already knew about that. We had the T-shirts. Besides if we did blow a fuse we knew how to fix it. We also replaced whatever fuses we blew so we wouldn't get caught. We had our own supply hidden away under my brother's mattress or somewhere.
Of course you couldn't fool Dad for very long. He was as sneaky as we were. One day he came up to us and asked where we had moved the stash to because he had run out. I guess every now and then he'd swipe one from us and replace it so he didn't get caught.
Anyway, I told Dad what happened and to expect a call and how she was likely to tell the entire town about it and make a big to-do about it.
To which dad asked me, "So? You did a good thing? What of it.........Oh. I got you. Don't worry. I'll fix it."
He had hardly finished when the phone rang. It was the kid's mother who prattled on at about Mach 4 about what a real hero I was.
Dan interrupted her and said, "And you're going to keep it a secret and tell nobody about it. Nobody. In fact let me speak to Dick."
After a few seconds I heard Dad speak to Dick. "Dick, you will instruct your wife to tell nobody and I mean NOBODY about what happened this afternoon. If she tells the world I can't control the outcome."
I only heard one side of the conversation. I didn't hear what Dick had to say.
"Most likely it will involve paint or possibly saws and I can't stop it short of outright murdering him. He's pretty upset over this. Just keep it under your hat," answered Dad.
I heard laughter on the other end and something unintelligible. Dad hung up, turned to me and said, "The fix is in."
Then he looked at me thoughtfully. "Hmmm....I guess we'd all be a lot better off if grownups didn't forget what it was like to be kids."
The other thing that comes to mind was the old widow that made wonderful pies. She was barely surviving on Social Security at the time and was pretty good to us kids. She made the best pies and once or twice near a Saturday we would put a couple of bags of apples, a pound of lard and a bag of flour at her doorstep, ring the bell and run off.
She'd generally leave a couple of pies on her window sill at about 3 in the afternoon on Saturday and we'd sneak up, take one and replace the pie plate with a reasonably identical pie plate of equal or greater value and run off to eat it somewhere.
Come wintertime I would sometimes sneak out of the house in the wee hours of a snowy day and shovel her a path to the street so she could walk to the post office and get her mail. She was too old to be shoveling snow.
One night at about 3 AM dad caught me cold and demanded to know what was going on and I told him. He asked why I did this.
I told him she was good to us and I didn't want her to know because she would try to give me money and couldn't afford to. I asked him to keep quiet about it.
"More likely you just like being sneaky," he replied. "Go ahead, I won't let on."
A time or two later later I got nailed cold by the local cop. I was busy shoveling away and he saw movement, turned his lights off and quietly glided up alongside me as I was finishing up. Busted.
"So it's YOU!" he said. "I'd have never guessed it! I thought you'd only be up this early to steal hubcaps!"
He told me the woman had been asking around trying to find out who was shoveling her path. I told him not to say anything about it because she'd try and pay me and couldn't afford it. I told him if he squealed on me I'd never shovel her walk again.
"Young man! Are you trying to tell a police officer what to do?" he asked. He appeared to be somewhat amused.
"No, Officer," I replied. "I'm just telling you what I am going to do if you do squeal on me."
He laughed for a minute and said, "Can't have that happen! More than likely you don't want to get the business from your pals if they find out. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."
He drove off chuckling. Ya gotta love those Old School cops. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Many of them had probably never finished high school but they just KNEW people, especially kids. Looking back on it he probably told a couple other cops. They shared a good laugh over it but never let on to anyone.
A few years ago I came home to a freshly mowed lawn. I had been out of town for a couple of days. Curiosity got the best of me and I called the kid I have mow my lawn when I was at sea and he said he hadn't. He knew I was only out of town for a day or two and knew I'd get to it when I got home.
I discreetly enquired as to who he thought it may be and promised to keep it under my hat. He said he thought it might have been the redheaded kid down the street. I thought about it a minute.
A month or so earlier I saw the kid pushing his bicycle home with a flat tire. He was smart enough not to 'rim it' and ruin the tire.
I told him to put it in in the driveway and let me take a look at it. I took the wheel off, pulled the tire offand found the leak in the tube and patched it up, put it together and filled the tire and sent him on his way. The thanks and look of joy I got for about 20 minutes work was a great reward.
After the mysterious mowing job I made a mental note. The next time I saw the kid I gave him a wink and a nod and was treated to a grin. I quietly said, Thank you." and left it at that. I was rewarded with a big, sheepish grin.
The whole thing is that that when someone does something out of the goodness of their heart then accept it and realize him or her had most likely done it simply because it is the right thing to do. Don't embarrass the kid by making a public spectacle out of it.
If you want to post WHAT the kid had done on line or even take out a billboard then have at it. Whatever you do, don't name him and make a public spectacle of him and embarrass him in front of his friends.
It's OK to quietly find the kid and thank them. You can reward them as you see fit. Give him a medal to hide in his sock drawer. Give him a big wad of cash. Buy him a new bicycle or a new car. Do whatever you see fit but don't make it public and embarrass them in front of their friends or they may very well turn on you.
There are a lot of fine young people out there that truly enjoy helping others and I daresay there are even more that would cheerfully help people out if more grownups knew how to play by the rules. You never embarrass or single a kid in front of his friends. Ever.
Always remember that the same kid that would cheerfully climb that big oak tree to rescue your cat is also capable of driving a couple copper spikes into the same tree if you embarrass him.
Don't ask me how I know about this.
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Too many adults don't stop and think about this and even when I have pointed this out to them they insist on putting a kid's name and face into the limelight.
Some often don't give a whit about the kid that's just helped them out. They just want to virtue signal and when that happens the kid that did them a favor winds up paying for it by getting a jacket pinned on them. Some adults do this out of pure selfishness to make them feel better about themselves.
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