Not a stranger, a H__M __ ___

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile, then forget. So, here it goes.

For a long time, I've been worried about Maren and her trusting nature. She's never met a stranger, but if you've ever met me, you'd realize that it may be in a chromosome other than her extra 21st. When I was 5 or 6, my parents spent several frantic minutes searching for me at a state park. Each time they'd ask someone if they had seen a little redheaded girl, they'd inform my parents that I told them I was hungry and they gave me food and I headed on my way.

Finally, they found me in an RV with a nice family who was again feeding me and trying to figure out how to find my family...How I made it through childhood, I'll never know.

Anyway, Maren has that sense of familiarity with the world, and obviously, I'm terrified that in this day and age, she could become a victim of some unscrupulous and horrible person. So, we work a lot on strangers. To no avail. We talk about strangers. We talk about stranger danger. I warn her.

So, we were at Publix and my Little Miss Magic begins a conversation with a cute college-aged boy in the front of the line. They start chatting and before you know it, he adds M&Ms to his order. As he's leaving, he hands them to her, and she beams and gives him a HUGE THANK YOU! Ugh. At least she knows her manners....

After he leaves, I take them away and tell her we cannot take candy from strangers. With a look of disdain and contempt, she stares me down, "He's not a stranger; He's a HUMAN!" And, she stomps her foot.

Alas, he's a human. Too bad we can't all see such sameness in the world.

Too bad I can't rely on the fact that all humans are kind. The world would be so beautiful if the humans could act the way my daughter believes they will :-).