My 911 experience

This is a picture from out my office window. We are considered a "community program" and are located in a couple of units in a housing development in one of the poorer parts of the city.

Last week I glanced out my window and saw, on that building, a kid, roughly 3 or 4 years old, hanging onto the outside of a second story window. Just beneath the windows there is a very narrow ledge - not enough for a foot, but enough for a toe hold. He was clinging to the top of the window frame.

I yelled to my coworker that there was a kid clinging to the side of the building and ran out. I approached him and said, "Hey Buddy, how about you go back inside?" He said, "I can't. I'm scared." There was a sidewalk beneath him, and if he fell it was a crap shoot if he'd hit concrete or soil. So rather than risk going over to the door and trying to get help from within, I stayed beneath him ready to break his fall and called 911. Just as the call was going through he got up the nerve, moved along the ledge and went in through a broken screen. I tried to hang up but being 911 they called me back. When I explained why I called, the dispatcher decided to send someone anyhow. The little boy talked to me somemore and tried to show me something on the bottom of his feet. I encouraged him to get off whatever he was standing on and go onto the floor.

The police came. They knocked on the door for a long time before another kid answered. I talked to them later and they said there was a dad at work and an older teenage brother who was to look after the children but was fast asleep. He didn't appear to be under any influences.

10 years ago, if this had happened, I'd probably be thinking what lousy parents this kid must have. Now I think, what kind of circumstances has this dad found himself in. Did the mother leave? Die? He's probably doing the best he can tring to support a family with income while maintaining their safety. And he probably has to rely on his oldest son because our society does not value childcare and refuses to provide it in any kind of comprehensive systematic way. Incidents like this make me all the more sure we have to quit having the attitude that families should just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and start providing what children need to be healthy and safe. We provide a basic education for all children no matter how "deserving" their parents are. Why not provide care for children, too?