Getting Arrested In Front Of Your Kids

Today, after dinner I looked out my side window, and noticed two Smyrna police cars stopped in the middle of our street. Next to the two cars were two officers, and a young family I see walking their dogs frequently. They are a young couple, with a boy about five or six, a toddler in a stroller, and two pit bulls. The reason I always notice them is that they are kind of stereotypical white trashy....maybe that's the reason. Maybe it's because it reminds me of my former life, life before Richard. I imagine that was what I looked like walking down the street, cigarette never out of my hand, walking around when I should be working, with a man walking around when he should be working, with two innocent children in tow. Today I watched out the window, as the police officers tried to spare the kids, and sent the woman, the dogs and the children around the corner, so as to not subject the children to watching their father get arrested. The guy cooperated, got searched, handcuffed and put into the back of the patrol car. For the next 30 minutes, I just got madder and madder and madder about the whole thing; parents doing stuff to get arrested in front of their kids. Kids growing up watching their parents getting arrested. Now, I don't know what this guys did. He might have had too many traffic tickets. He probably wasn't a mass murderer. But it just bothered me immensely, thinking about that little boy, walking away, looking back at his dad, knowing what was going to happen. Teach your children well. This isn't preaching. This is coming from hindsight.