On being an interfering busybody
Sep. 30th, 2009 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheInterfering busybodies including teachers and health professionals could have, but didn't, rescued thousands - millions - of children from neglectful or abusive homes. Or stopped violent crimes. Or whatever the hell else.
I am definitely a fully signed up interfering busybody. The child hanging out the window of a fast-moving van, no seatbelt, no carseat, rubber-teated bottle of juice in their mouth - they deserved to be safer (I still don't know their sex). The woman who was knocked off her bike deserved to be looked after and to get home safely. The woman who was held against a wall by a man with one hand holding a smoking cigarette and the other holding her throat, she deserved to be rescued (and she was; I saw the police stop before I even got off the phone, that time, though I did not stop walking myself, because I was afraid). And always, I come back to the two little boys screaming in the night, and the man who drove them away shouting "I have to get rid of these fucking kids."
I never, ever want to have to say to someone's mother or lover or child, "I saw it, I heard it, but I didn't do anything, I could have gone out or phoned up or said something, and I didn't do anything."
Never.
And that means that sometimes I will get yelled at in public by people who think I should mind my own business, or I will phone for an ambulance and have to tell the 999 call-handler "Oh no, he woke up, he's fine, just drunk, send the ambulance somewhere else, it's ok, really, he's fine, he's - this is embarrassing - he's playing the guitar, you can hear him, listen," or something else. I might get hurt, sometime, though I never have yet.
I'm ok with that. I'm not ok with telling someone "I heard the screams and I didn't even go and look. Sorry."
I am definitely a fully signed up interfering busybody. The child hanging out the window of a fast-moving van, no seatbelt, no carseat, rubber-teated bottle of juice in their mouth - they deserved to be safer (I still don't know their sex). The woman who was knocked off her bike deserved to be looked after and to get home safely. The woman who was held against a wall by a man with one hand holding a smoking cigarette and the other holding her throat, she deserved to be rescued (and she was; I saw the police stop before I even got off the phone, that time, though I did not stop walking myself, because I was afraid). And always, I come back to the two little boys screaming in the night, and the man who drove them away shouting "I have to get rid of these fucking kids."
I never, ever want to have to say to someone's mother or lover or child, "I saw it, I heard it, but I didn't do anything, I could have gone out or phoned up or said something, and I didn't do anything."
Never.
And that means that sometimes I will get yelled at in public by people who think I should mind my own business, or I will phone for an ambulance and have to tell the 999 call-handler "Oh no, he woke up, he's fine, just drunk, send the ambulance somewhere else, it's ok, really, he's fine, he's - this is embarrassing - he's playing the guitar, you can hear him, listen," or something else. I might get hurt, sometime, though I never have yet.
I'm ok with that. I'm not ok with telling someone "I heard the screams and I didn't even go and look. Sorry."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 11:46 am (UTC)I also think there's a difference between believing a child is generally being badly parented and believing they are being seriously neglected or abused, but can't point to the line or tell you where people cross it.
One of my favourite phrases is "Would it help if I helped?"