Pollyanna

Recently I decided that it would be good for my kids to help me volunteer somewhere. I thought to myself, my children are really, really blessed/lucky/priviledged, whatever you want to call it (don't call it spoiled because then I can get cranky). They are five years old and I really don't think that they are old enough yet to realize that not everyone their age in the world gets to live in a nice house, have a fully tummy, wear nice clothes and have a playroom that is reminiscent of Toys R Us.

Being the sometimes naive person that I am, I thought to myself, we should help out at our local soup kitchen (St. Vincent's soup kitchen). We drove down there and I was all ready to ladel soup (okay or serve food, I am not that naive that I believe that they only serve soup) and have my children experience a situation that they have never really had to think about before.

We arrived there and went to talk to the volunteer leader...who looked at me like I was insane. She feels that the kids are WAY too young to be introduced to the people in our city that frequent the soup kitchen, she reminded me that the local Meth Clinic is practically right beside the kitchen and alot of the clientele are some unsavory type of people. Right. I forgot about that.

Loading my kiddies back into the car, feeling a little embarrassed that I hadn't really thought about the whole situation we came home. I told my hubby what I had done, and he called me Pollyanna (like the old Disney movie), he said that I see the world through rose coloured glasses and I need to take them off occassionally and see the world the way it is. Isn't that awful? We are the perfect Ying and Yang, he tends to be the Realist and I tend to be...well...Pollyanna like. I hope our kids turn out to be a good combination of both, because sometimes it's really nice to look at the world and see only the good in people and not always be suspicious of their motives.

So after that whole situation, we signed up to volunteer somewhere else. In our local old age home. My kids might not be able to see people less fortunate then themselves, but at least they will still be helping in their community. Maybe we will save the soup kitchen for when they are a bit older.