beyond cinderella

Yesterday, like many days, I took my daughter, Shantel, to McDonald’s before school so she could get her bacon, egg, cheese biscuit and coffee. As I sat there waiting for Shantel to finish eating, I noticed this man sitting across from us playing a video game.

Normally I wouldn’t think anything about that except he also had a young child with him that was begging him to take him over to this play area and watch him climb through the tunnels…

I thought the man looked like he might be the child’s grandfather, however, the child called the man “dad” over and over again as he continued to try to get the man’s attention and get him to go with the child to the play area. Sadly, the man never even looked up from the video game to acknowledge the child so the child finally gave up and went to the play area alone. I don’t even think the man ever noticed the child was gone…

Finally, after awhile, the child came back and sat at the table with the man he called “dad” trying to talk to him but again the man/dad never looked up or responded to the child until the child reached across the table and tried to play the video game with his “dad”. Only then did the man/dad look up, grab the child’s hand, and told him not to touch the video game and to go over to the other table and play there if  he wanted to play a video game.

The child looked over at the other video game, then turned back to his “dad’ and said “let’s just go home now… My heart ached for the child as I thought to myself “what a sad sight to see…”

I bet that man has no idea how his lack of attention affected that child. I hope he’s not surprised when the day comes that the child stops trying to get his “dad’s” attention and turns his attention elsewhere… hopefully that won’t be in the wrong direction where he might think any attention is better than none, even if it is negative attention…

Stay Tuned!