No Compassion

I no longer have compassion on my children when their beloved stuff gets wrecked or lost because of their negligence.

I DID feel bad when my daughter's bike got stolen out of the front yard.

I DID sympathize when my other daughter's bike got run over in the neighbor's driveway. To be honest, I actually had to stifle laughter at some point because it was actually quite comical the way the bike bent completely in half. But I did comfort her because she was obviously very upset about it.

But now, the compassion is gone. My children's scooters have been lying in the front yard for many days. Many, many days. And they would occasionally (once every 8 days or so, maybe) pick up a scooter, scoot somewhere, and then return the scooter to it's exact location on the grass.

Yesterday, it dawned on them: the scooters were gone.

With no concern whatsoever, I simply said "ha ha". (Imagine Nelson from the Simpsons.) Well, no I didn't say that because it would have been a little too heartless (but I did think it). I told them that it was a natural consequence for leaving their stuff lying around and not putting it away properly.

They got the scooters from a neighbor's yard sale. They were very well used scooters. My wonderful neighbor let the kids talk her down to $5 each. They paid for them with their own money.

I might have been more "compassionate" if it had been my money.