It’s about 6:00pm and I hear a knock on the door. Of course I hurry and through my jacket on as I have no bra on, I’m in my PJ’s and I still have not brushed my teeth. My oldest son’s friend and his mom were on the front porch and I’m thinking to myself oh how nice she is coming to introduce herself - WRONG!!! She starts off by telling me that there was “an incident with our boys today” in which apparently my son had stuck something in her sons ear causing it to bleed. She immediately ran her son to the e.r.( I probably would have done the same myself) to find out that he was indeed OK and just had a little scratch on his ear, did you get that not in his ear on his ear. She then preceded to had me a receipt for the $100 co-pay she had to pay because, “as parents we are responsible for our children’s actions” she stated. So I’m thinking what the hell I don’t have $100 dollars and wait what happened? I call my 7 year old up to find out. He had gotten one of those poppers at school, its like a rubber ball cut in half and hollowed out and you flip it and it pops back out. He did hold it up to his friends ear, and the pop scared his friend I’m sure, but there is just no way it could have caused a scratch on his ear yet alone bleeding, it was a rubber ball!

the little culprit!!

So I tell the mom that I’m sorry for my son’s poor choice of entertainment but that I really did not think it justified my being responsible for her co-pay to the e.r. Of course she pursued a bit more explaining that she didn’t have the money and that when she saw the blood she panic (and mind you she was very nice the entire time) and I sympathized with her and explained again that I didn’t feel I was responsible for this but I saw the conversation was developing into one very round circle so I asked for a copy of the receipt and told her I would discuss it with my husband. She said she had a copier at home and would have her daughter run it over. Well that was yesterday and I still have not seen her daughter or a copy of the receipt.

So here is the question that keeps rolling through my mind, where do we draw the line in taking responsibility for our children’s actions? My son made a poor judgement call in playing with an object so close to someones ear, so does that alone make me responsible for his actions? I do not believe the object could have harmed the friend in any way other that probably scaring him. It’s hard to say, I wasn’t there and these are only 7 year old boys. If there was without any doubt my child had harmed another child I would immediately take responsibility in whatever way necessary, even paying a hospital bill. But in this case I don’t know where the scratch came from, I don’t know that it justified a visit to the e.r. (not that I am criticizing her decision to take him in any way, that’s a choice only a mom can make in the moment and I cannot for one minute belittle that.) So now I wonder does her absence show that maybe she somewhat agrees with me and realizes she cannot fairly hold me accountable or had this just begun. Crazy thing is these days, people are getting harder and harder to figure out. Sometimes the people you think are civil and decent end up being your worst nightmare![ad#ad-6]