What do adults leave for children?

I didn’t want to finish reading the first article about a first grader who didn’t get to eat at a party because his mother didn’t contribute to the fund, because my eyes and nose were stinging. I didn’t want to read it, but I forced myself to read it over and over again.

Reading the first article, I couldn't understand why the teachers in this case could calmly sit at the "happy party table" while a child in the class had to sit and watch. I'm sure that among the remaining 31 children, there would be many who would also feel tearful - like me - because of pity, concern and sympathy for their friend. But they didn't dare to speak up, didn't dare to suggest, didn't dare to invite or share. They didn't dare - even secretly - to take food for their friend, because simply, if this were true, the children wouldn't dare to go against the wishes of the 2 teachers and 3 parents who distributed their meals. Because perhaps, they already knew the reason: it was fair, if you don't pay, you don't get to eat. For the immature children - only grade 1 - who haven't been infected by the cold, indifferent fairness that the adults are talking about, that party certainly wouldn't be fun and delicious. It was a torture. I hope this story isn't true. Imagining that situation, I was terrified!

I also don't understand what the baby's mother is thinking. Well, it's for some reason, or because she doesn't want to pay for her child in a non-mandatory amount. But oh well, only once a year, and it's the baby's first year, how could she bear it... I also don't understand how she can bear to let her little child sit and watch the party (like in her imaginative article), as a test. Then she "shared" it, brought her child's story to debate, on social media, as a way to "fight" for what she considers her rights, what is reasonable. Of course, she only demands fairness and reasonableness from others, but not from her parental responsibility and motherly love. I was horrified, wondering what was flowing in her motherly heart?

Okay, let's not argue about right or wrong, reasonable or not. For the adults involved, if the story is true, whether it's one side's fault or both, it's still a shameful stain. There's no right or wrong, no rules here.

Fortunately, the whole ugly, bad-sounding story was just the imagination of one parent - I think frivolous and heartless. The teachers did not abandon any of the students. The food was shared. The party was still fun and no one discriminated or mentioned anything about paying or not paying.

"Mom, will I get to have a party when I go to second grade?" The question that is said to have come from the child that this article recorded is probably not real, or it could be made up to make the story a little more touching. But the answer is still there.

Perhaps 15 or 20 years from now, the child will no longer remember the lessons he received in first grade. Then he goes to class, changes schools, flies away, the faces and figures of the homeroom teacher, the English teacher, and the three parents who gave him food, will probably also fade. But the resentment, the feeling of loss, the hurt of knowing that in the past, the whole society was possessed just because of a piece of chicken leg for him in the last class of the first school year, I dare say, will be hard to forget. The calculations, the frustration, and the fuss that his mother initiated today, will probably still be imprinted in his mind.

If so, I am afraid to imagine what will form in the emotions and personality of an adult a few decades later. At least, and most frighteningly, it will be a serious and persistent injury. It will take root and form a scab in the soul. A teacher is like a gentle mother, a mother is also a teacher... can it be a belief, a respect like the soulful song?

I don't know, I don't expect that to happen. That is to say, I hope humans are more forgetful creatures than I worry about. And I also hope that this is just an isolated, unique case.

I just wish the child’s mother had not rashly brought the story to the media, which is often curious and sometimes irresponsible. Perhaps the adults involved in the story did not foresee the consequences, because the story would explode into such an ugly and chaotic mess. Thousands, tens of thousands of comments on the mother’s Facebook were a total storm of insults and arguments. To the point that, despite her strong will, this parent just “wished for everything to end”. But the bowl of water had been thrown on the ground…

You should have thought about your child, about the hurt, about the distorted emotions before putting the mostly imaginary story on the page. Could it be that to prove your determination, you would let your child sit in a corner and watch the whole class celebrate with a blank look? You know, at the end of that look, the future is a sad, selfish gray. And in the heart of a child, what is lacking is not a piece of food but joy, human love...