r/behindthebastards • u/Spotted_Towhee123 • 1d ago

General discussion Trying to understand and be empathetic towards an issue, would appreciate opinions/advice

Hi all! I grew up being taught that all panhandlers are to be scorned and have generally expunged that belief from myself. Yeah there's scammers out there, but I'm being scammed out of a pension by corporate greed so who cares if I give someone a few bucks right. But the one thing that just continues to make my hackles go up is when I see people making there kids sit out there and panhandle with them. I try to take a step back and remind myself that when people are homeless with kids paying for childcare is obviously out of the question, but also, these kids should be in school. Why are they not in school? For public schools it's not like they're checking if parents are giving them the address of a shelter, right? There's also the possibility that I think of that kids could be being used to guilt trip people into giving more money when they have a place to go that's not the corner of an intersection. I know there's a lot of misinformation that goes around about child exploitation, but there's times where I really wonder that if the adult stepped away and the kid was allowed to speak freely, what would they say? I've been grappling with this for a while and would appreciate people's thoughts on the issue. I know logically there's perfectly normal reasons why kids would be taken panhandling with their parents, but sometimes there's a voice in the back of my head saying "what if?"

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u/WalrusSnout66 1d ago

Where are the kids of a homeless person supposed to go?

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u/bacon1292 1d ago

Kids should be in school, yes.

What school district do you register in if you don't have a fixed address?

How do you get your kids ready for school if you slept under an overpass last night?

How do you get your kids to school if you don't have a car?

What if you don't have ID?

What if you're from out of state?

What if you're trying to stay under the radar because your abusive ex will kidnap your kids if s/he finds them?

Do you have the mental bandwidth to answer any of these questions while you try to figure out where your next meal is going to come from?

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u/JKinney79 22h ago

My general thing is ask me once and I’ll politely decline, ask me a second time and I tend to be surly. This also applies to sales people or any kinda solicitation.

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u/SomeBitterDude 2h ago

Were you listening to The Dude’s story, Donny?