Hobson's Choice
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cash
Where's Randy Cohen when I need him? Let's ask the ethicist. (Am I the only one who's wondered how the Ethicist can be named Randy?)
-- So I've now observed twice cash transactions going on with our teenage next door neighbor. Kid comes to the door with money, then leaves. I don't actually see anything passed back, but....as hypervigilant mommy type, I start pondering.
But the question is: what to do? what to think?
Our neighbor has been through a lot this year; she and her husband have separated. You don't want to add to someone's burden. But yet if something's wrong....
I think if Eleanor were passing cash back and forth on our doorstep, I would want to be told, regardless. And I'd be delighted to explain that it's all about Girl Scout Cookies.
But then I don't face the stigma of everyone assuming my child is a thug just because she's a taciturn teenage African American male (whoa! somewhere in there my pronouns got mixed up). And I'm so damn naive about drugs and dealing; I don't know what an actual deal would look like. I worry that I am assuming it's drugs just because he's black and because he has never said hello to me since we moved in.
I DON'T IMAGINE REAL DRUG DEALS GO ON UNDER THE WATCHFUL GAZE OF MIDDLE-CLASS MOTHERLY NEIGHBOR.
Oh, Ethicist, answer me.
6:28 p.m. - 2005-05-31
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