Our children deserve the best of care

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

Trains afford us the vantage point of seeing the world pass by, they also give us time to read and study and at times give us a window into the lives of other people. 

I spotted this little boy walking through the train with phone to his ear and every second word uttered from his lips was the F-word. He was small in stature. 

I took him to be about 10. It was because he passed me more than once that I had noticed him.

Our train made a 10 minute scheduled stop, which allowed me stretch my legs and gawk about at what is an unfamiliar station for me. Walking up the platform I spotted the little boy at the door of a carriage with another boy. We got chatting. Again every sentence includes the F-word. I suggested he might try to stop using it, something he could not at all understand. The other boy looked older and he was certainly quieter than the small chap. To my surprise it turned out the F-man was 13 and going into second year and the other boy was 14, about to move up to third year. For reasons of clarity we better give them names: we’ll call the small boy Jim and the older chap Steve. They are not their real names. They were all talk, curious too, asking me what I did for a job, to which they got no reply. After a few laughs they asked could they sit with me on the train. I said no. It was time for the train to move off. I went back to my seat and within 10 minutes they arrive and plonk themselves at my seat. For the next 90 minutes I was regaled with the current stories of their lives. 

Like all other children they are on school holidays. 

Their holidays from school have them jumping on trains and heading off somewhere for the day, no fares paid. I give them full marks for having the initiative to visit new places but I doubt it’s a good practice travelling for free. 

Another of their adventures is exploring abandoned buildings. Jim tells me he vapes and that Steve smokes grass. And in telling me that they both have a great laugh. They regularly miss school. Jim explains he got one per cent in his summer history test, while Steve got over 90 per cent in maths at summer. 

Neither of them likes school and Jim has been suspended innumerable times for misbehaviour. They decided to get off a few stops short of the train’s final destination as they were going to buy a pizza and eat it under a bridge, where they often have something to eat. Not a mention of doing summer camps

There was something lovely about the two young boys, and behind all their braggadocio I got the impression they were two good gentle souls. 

But I was also scared that they could so easily get into serious trouble. They could indeed be easy pickings for those engaged in the nasty world of drugs or other criminal activity. 

They led me to believe that home was a pit stop, where they slept and ate, and there was little or no parental control. Maybe I am all wrong. I hope and pray I am.

Nelson Mandela’s wise words are worth recalling: ‘There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.’