Raising My Neighbors' Kids

I love kids.

I like to make faces at them in restaurants, I like to hear them laughing, and I like to, whenever I can, make them smile. To make them smile, I have only one strategy: When I catch a child staring at me, I open my big eyes as wide as I can. Usually this makes them smile (Although, sometimes they cry). But I don't like to play peek-a-boo, or bulge my eyes, when the kid's parents are looking.

Why?

It's because even though I love kids, I know pedophiles do, too. And, as Hamlet would say, therein lies the rub.

My neighbors have two twin girls, towheaded blondes who are always grinning, probably either six or seven years old. Occasionally I stop by my apartment during my lunch break, and during these times I sometimes see these girls leaving with their school bags, presumably for a half-day of Kindergarten.

One day when they were waiting in an SUV, they banged on the window to get my attention as I walked past them. I turned to see them both waving enthusiastically, and I smiled and waved back. This is just one example; these two outgoing, little girls have never failed to greet me cheerfully in passing.

Today I was walking to the front door of my apartment complex (a clear glass door which provides a view of the stairs within). My hands were full and I was trying to wrestle my keys from my suddenly stubborn coat pocket. I wasn't succeeding.

Then, I heard one of the girls crying "I"ll get it" as they both bounded down the stairs to open the door for me. (Opening the front door to an apartment complex for a man who is essentially a stranger.) Their father, or the man who seems to take them to school, or wherever it is they go with their backpacks, was walking up the sidewalk behind me (I wonder if he would have bothered to come up the walk if I hadn't been there; or would he have allowed the girls to walk unaided to his waiting SUV?).

As the girls opened the door for me, I said thank you, and I think I smiled. But I tried not to meet their eyes. I felt like doing so would make me look suspicious, like maybe the father would think I'm a threat just because I smiled at his girls.

I could never harm a child, and I have no unhealthy interest in them whatsoever. I know this. But I'm not delusional enough to expect fathers I don't know to know this about me. And honestly, I'm not sure I want them to think the best of me, or any stranger.

It's sad that I shouldn't be friendly to kids I don't know (especially free-spirited, friendly girls who seem happy to see me). But yet, what kind of message would I send if I'm friendly? Would I be teaching the girls that strangers can be trusted, that strangers are safe?

I don't know.

Of course, I don't think I looked threatening today. Not in the daylight, wearing work clothes, with my arms bearing two bags of groceries.

But there are unfriendly strangers who can wear dress clothes, walk about in daylight, and, heck, even carry groceries. I think I would prefer that parents choose to distrust me. Because if people choose to trust everyone, it only takes one psycho to change their daughter's (or daughters') life/lives, and it only takes one psycho to end a life. So by trusting no strangers, as sad as that might be, wouldn't parents be more likely to protect their daughters?

I know this sounds cynical, this whole "trust no one" mentality. But if it were your child, or your twin little girls, would you risk it?

I know I would prefer to be able to smile at those girls (any kid, really--boy or girl), but I wonder, in the long run, if it's wise:

If I were especially evil, I could have scooped up some snow, packed it into airtight balls, and blasted both those girls in the face. And then I could have run away laughing, leaving those girls with a lasting impression that strangers are dangerous (or at least that this stranger is, this stranger whom they have been so friendly to in the past). And I think that memory, that impression, would last longer than the snow stinging their face.

But, maybe, just maybe, a smile could leave an impression that would last just as long.

And if so, which is better? A scowl that scares the children closer to those they know they can trust, or a smile that warms them to further interaction with strange men?

I don't have the answer. I do know I don't want to scowl. I do know there is something special, something almost sacred, about a friendly encounter with a total stranger. I do know I feel moved everytime I experience unexpected goodness while interacting with those I don't know.

But I don't know what's best for those girls. And I don't envy parents their task: teaching children to be wary of strangers without molding them in a cast of continual cynicism.

And children aren't influenced by family alone. They have teachers, bus drivers, and Sunday School teachers. And, well, neighbors.

And to best assist as my neighbors attempt to raise those little girls, should I smile or simply look away?

I don't know. But I'll probably take my chances and keep smiling.

-Thanks for reading.