<<http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/graham200312220001.asp>>
December 22, 2003, 12:01 a.m. Ebenezer Was Right Or, how I became a compassionless conservative.
By Jennifer Nicholson Graham
Except for a brief, irrational fling with Jimmy Carter during my high-school years, I've always been a Republican.
Until recently, however, I was a squishy one, teetering dangerously to the left on a few select issues such as coastline management and welfare reform. I want to be a good conservative � really, I do � but I've got this weakness for intact sand dunes and latchkey kids.
But then I met Tiffany. Or, more precisely, Tiffany's mother. And, after a ten-month crash course in why the poor are poor, I am squishy no more.
Tiffany moved to our cul-de-sac in February, the same week that we moved in. Initially, we were thrilled to see another set of movers unloading Little Tykes products a few houses down. But it didn't take long to realize that Tiffany's family were not, as we Grahams lightly put it, PLU: People Like Us.
Tiffany was overweight, but pretty, gifted with luxurious black curls that tumbled to her waist. She was eight, a year younger than my eldest daughter, and waited at the bus stop each morning with us. She was the only child there without a parent present.
Tiffany had a four-year-old brother, Charlie, the owner of a ragged Hot Wheels trike that was frequently left in the street. When we first met Charlie, he had disheveled brown hair that hung below his shoulders. It was not a flattering look. By July, the head was shaven, and when I recovered from the shock of it, and asked Tiffany about the change, she said, with great happiness, that her mother was considering dyeing it so Charlie would "look like Eminem."
Innocently revealing the vast chasm between our families, my daughter asked what color M&M.
When the family moved in, there was the mother, the brother, and Tiffany. Within a month, there was a male "babysitter" living on the premises, ostensibly to watch the children while the mother went off to her pizza-parlor job. Within two months, the fellow was gone, reportedly to jail.
Didn't really matter. The "babysitter" never saw the children, as far as I knew. I heard he played video games. The kids were always at my house. Or wandering the streets alone. Or knocking on neighbors' doors, saying they had nothing to eat. There was no apparent supervision, even when the mother was home.
The neighbors whispered. One woman called social services. A visitor came in a white government van, but nothing seemed to change. The children wore clothing too big, and for the wrong seasons. They came to my backyard every afternoon. They asked to use the bathroom, asked for things to eat. I welcomed them warmly each day and let them stay until Charlie would throw sand in someone's eyes, or hit someone with a stick, or utter a very bad word � it never took long � and then he, wailing, was sent home.
The mother lost her job. She got another one, and was fired again. The phone was turned off, then the cable. She would occasionally ask to use my phone and while here, grumble about her "bad luck." She "borrowed" rolls of toilet paper. Another man moved in. Occasionally a police car would sit outside the house. Once, I thought I heard gunshots late at night.
She got another job, and lost that one, too. We never knew the details, but Tiffany would occasionally mention that her mother was performing "community service" and had to "pay the courts." There were rumors of drugs. The grass went uncut, until the neighborhood association sent a threatening letter. Everyone wondered how she paid the rent in a neighborhood like ours.
Well, it turned out, she didn't, at least not after July. She was told to move out by Halloween. By then, she was pregnant again, the third child by a third man. She was not working and couldn't pay the rent, but she somehow found money for cigarettes.
When they finally moved out � under court order, tires squealing at 6 A.M. on Nov. 1 � we in the neighborhood thought that was the end of it. The next day, I loaded everyone in the car and drove to a playground ten minutes away. To my horror, there were Tiffany and Charlie, ecstatically running towards us � unsupervised, of course. They were hanging out at the park after school, sleeping in a motel at night, at least until their money ran out. After that, they would sleep in the car. Their furniture was in storage.
Two weeks later, the mother was still driving Tiffany to the neighborhood bus stop. It had turned cold, and I pictured them sleeping in the back of the car. Knowing, knowing that I would regret it, but unable to stop myself, I met the mother at the bus and offered to take Tiffany in. Just Tiffany, and just for a week, until she could find an apartment. She hinted that she needed $250 for a security deposit. I ignored that, but when she asked for gas money, I gave her $5, all the cash I had. I made up the couch for my oldest son so Tiffany could have his bed.
Two days later, Tiffany came down with a sore throat, and I hunted down the mother. She wasn't sleeping in the car, it turned out. She was staying with a friend, and the friend told me that the mother was out bowling. Bowling. She'd be back around midnight. I held her sick child and thought morosely of my five dollars.
Two days later, another neighbor told me that the mother is probably going to jail next month. She was caught driving with a suspended license....for the fourth time. She's had two DUIs. The old Mustang she is driving has expired tags. As of this writing, she continues to drive.
When I finally called the school, I was told that Virginia has some sort of homeless act, and Tiffany can continue to attend our school forever, even if she lives in a car. Which, I suppose, is a good thing. It troubles me, however, that the school's response to the rest of the story � the neglect, suspicions of abuse, proof of lawbreaking � was to send the child "home" with a form with which the mother can obtain free Christmas gifts.
And so it is, that on the eve of the merriest of seasons, I have finally become a compassionless conservative, because of a deadbeat mother who bowls. I now stand in defense of Darwin and natural selection, and of Ebenezer Scrooge, the real Scrooge � before he went soft like me � Scrooge, at his noblest, the way he was before the onset of those pesky midnight visitors. I think of him fondly and recall his inspiring words: "Are there no prisons? Are there no poorhouses?"
It's time to rethink old Scrooge. Ebenezer knew the truth: No good deed goes unpunished.
Sure enough, after I fed, nursed, and clothed her daughter for better than a week � after I braided the child's hair, dried her tears, and once took her new clothes at school after a bad nosebleed � the mother retrieved her daughter at the bus stop with nary a word of thanks. She heard � wrongly � that I had reported her to social services. She's furious with me, says a neighbor in the know. The prospect of me getting my $5 back � as well as a dozen or so rolls of Scott tissue � is bleak. The prospect of me getting sugar in my gas tank or slits in my tires is very bright indeed. And yes, Tiffany gave my kids strep throat.
As a mother, I still worry about Tiffany and her brother, but, as a conservative, I know that as long as the neighborhood � the village � cared for them, her mother never would. Maybe, with the help of a jail and a poorhouse, the little family will get it together, discover the value of work. It's a long shot, but, as the magnet on my refrigerator says, "Dreams come true at Christmas."
God bless us every one.
� Jennifer Graham is a freelance journalist who lives in Richmond, Virginia.
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