http://www.gulftoday.ae/portal/c9b982d4-5c20-4f86-bb71-e308cb5fa455.aspx
Twack! “Goal.”
“No, foul.”
“No Goal.”
The ball hit me so hard, it left a grey, dusty circle, of hexagons on my abaya. You would think that these kids would apologise for their misguided kick, playing in. Think again.
These are kids, many of whom have never known hardship and where if they don’t like their teacher, they can get her fired or just move to another school.
Hence, many think adults are beneath them. They didn’t care if I was hurt. “Can’t you see we are playing? Get out of the way,” is their attitude. When I got hit, I was so surprised by their attitude that I couldn’t say anything. However, the next group of wayward footballers weren’t so lucky.
When three boys turned my friend’s head into a goalpost, she was hot, and took the ball from them. I walked into my building to find her and three boys aged between 7 and 12 years.
“Do you have a pen?” she asked. “I want them to write their mothers’ numbers down, so I can tell them what their children are doing.”
MashaAllah, she is old school, but these new school kids never heard of discipline, respect for elders, or have the decency to recognise their mistake and simply say sorry.
When they realised that they may not get their ball back, it suddenly dawned on them to apologise, but it was too late.
“Ok, we understand our mistake,” pleaded the oldest. “We want the ball so that we can go to salah.”
I wanted to believe him.
One boy, who looked about ten years old, didn’t get it and was getting angry. He then began talking to us as if we were his misbehaving maids.
“Look, are you Arab?” he enquired.
I started speaking to him in Arabic.
“You are wrong. You have no right to talk to us like this,” I told him.
“Just take the ball,” I suggested to my friend. We had wasted enough time with these kids.
“Ok,” she said, and together, we got into the elevator.
She wanted to give him a chance since the older boy was calm and somewhat respectful, “Give me your mother’s number.”
“No,” the small one responded.
“No ball, then,” was my reply.
We got into the elevator. The younger one pushed the button trying to hold us hostage till we released his ball.
“You have to realise, that you are just a kid,” my friend told him, but this boy just didn’t get it. Finally, the older of the three told him, “Just stop.”
The door closed and we went up.
The question in my mind is: how can children with attitudes like these become the leaders of the future? If they don’t change, then, the future looks very bleak.
