Three In One Day

Today I took my daughter shopping. We went to have some lunch first, and as we left the resteraunt in Dundee, we drove past the 23 on and off ramps. There was a man at the end of the off ramp holding a sign, which I assume said something about needing money for food, or his desire to work for food. I have seen someone standing there before in the last few months. I have also seen a girl on the other side of town in front of the grocery store with a sign saying she's pregnant and needs money for food and rent. I didn't pay much attention to the man at the off ramp and headed toward Monroe to do the shopping.

A few minutes later we were in Monroe at a stop light and there was the girl with the pregnant sign that I saw a few weeks ago in Dundee. I have seen a man before standing in front of the resteraunt she was at today. My daughter saw her and asked what the sign said. I took a deep breath and told her it says she's pregnant, then clarified that she was familiar with what that meant. She told me that meant the girl is going to have a baby. I said yes. Then I read the rest of the sign about needing money for food and rent. I asked her if she thought it was a good idea to get pregnant if you don't have enough money for food and other things the baby will need. She said no. Okay, my five year old is already smarter than the girl with the sign. Then I asked her if she thought it was a good idea to give the girl money. She wasn't sure how to answer. I said what if we did give her money and she didn't really spend it on food, what if she wasted it? How would we know? My daughter agreed. We then spent a few minutes discussing the importance of working for what you have and being responsible enough to know when to have a baby and when not to.

When we were done shopping and driving out of the parking lot, there was yet a third sign holder, this one was a man with a "will work 4 food" sign. As we waited at the light near the man I told her what the sign said. I asked if she thought it would be a good idea to give him money. She said no, we don't know what he would do with it, he might waste it. This may seem like a bad thing to teach a kid, it may seem like I'm teaching her not to be charitable. But on the contrary, I want to teach her not to be gullible. And I can't help but have the sneaking suspicion that the three sign holders might just be working together. Maybe if I watched one of them long enough I would see them walk to the nearest parking lot and get into a vehicle nicer than mine and drive off and pick up the other two.