A Montana woman has been fined nearly $1000 for letting her 12-year-old daughter drive three siblings to day care. According to the Associated Press (http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/midwest/view.bg?articleid=1201831&srvc=next_article#), the mother agreed to plead “no contest” because the 12-year-old did not wish to testify against her mother. The mother had indicated that she let her daughter drive because she was “too sick and medicated to drive.” After just a few conversations, a host of questions come from this. What are the driving laws in Montana? What was the urgency which prompted the mother to feel the need to absolutely get the kids to day care? What is meant by “medicated”? These are all valid questions, however I would like to take a completely different angle.
I recognize that I am not “old” per se, being 45 years old. I grew up in a “middle class” neighborhood, albeit the “middle class” is disappearing. I also grew up in a “neighborhood.” I have never been to Great Falls, Montana, and so I can not say anything bad about the area, and certainly believe that this could have happened nearly anywhere. But I have been reading a good bit about our loss of the “neighborhood,” people being too busy to be in community with one another, being “there” for one another. Have we become so busy with our own lives, with trying to survive, that we do not even know our neighbors, let alone be willing to help them with their needs? People of Great Falls, Montana, are you telling me that there was no one this woman could have called for help?
Is it not “our” responsibility? Have we as society lost our sense of “community”? Is it really not our concern?
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