As a general rule, are Canadians really non-confrontational? I think there’s also a tendency to not appear judgmental if it can be avoided. Why? I can only speak for myself, but living in such a place like Toronto I’m surrounded by people of different backgrounds, walks of life, values, etc. Unless I make myself familiar with every nuance in every person’s life, I can’t fully grasp and understand why people do the things they do. It’s not my place to judge, right? Anyway, this attitude probably isn’t the best. I mean, in the end it sort of encourages a bit of willful ignorance. This was kind of exposed in conversation last night. At the bar, in the same conversation a bunch of us were having about our occupations, a friend started speaking about her line of work. She started off with a surprising opening line, which made me go “Oh…” As she continued to tell her story, it started getting a little bit odd, and then ventured into the realm where I started questioning whether she was being serious.
…I work at a strip club…
…not proud of it, but sometimes I have to turn tricks to make ends meet…
…I have to leave my 5 and 6 year old kids at home…
…If there’s trouble, there’s a crawl space in the basement for them to hide…
…I need to have the girl climb into the chimney to clean it…
Of course, in the end she was just joking about the whole thing. Still, it became the topic of conversation how the rest of us that were listening were so willing to take her word and accept it all without judging her openly. Funny dynamic after the fact, yes? Would it have been my business to call her out on any of it if it was true? I guess the part about the children would have been important. Still, if she was willing to share something like that would I have been willing to take responsibility for getting her children taken away? Tough call.
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2 comments
Kyleen says:
Mon. December 6, 2010 at 1:17 pm (UTC -4 )
Well… if it turned out to be a serious thing, then yes, I think you have a responsibility to do what is right for the kids. I mean, it’s completely unacceptable to leave children that age alone. Even if you were the cause that they were taken away, it would be for the safety of the children. Lets say you didn’t do anything and then learned later they died in a fire because they accidentally set one while trying to cook for themselves and then they were afraid to leave the house or building? I mean, you’d feel 1000 worse of a child died that if you were the cause of a mother losing custody.
In my opinion, for what it’s worth, that’s not being judgmental. That’s being a participant in society and doing what is right for a member that can’t speak for themselves yet.
Jay says:
Tue. December 21, 2010 at 10:24 pm (UTC -4 )
Right on. You’re absolutely right. The situation in the bar was just odd. I mean, the stories were kind of contradicting what little I knew about her. Oh well.