While we were growing up, my three brothers had a proclivity for clusters of injuries. One of them broke bones and he was the Bone Man. One time he had the misfortune of just having healed from a broken collar bone. We had gone to visit cousins and they started scuffling. His cousin fell on him and broke his other collar bone!
Another brother seemed to get lots of cuts. He still bears the blue scar on his forearm of his fall on a rusty can in the yard when he was 3 years old and mother poured tincture of iodine in it to disinfect it. Another time he was riding his bike down a newly graveled hill, slid, fell off the bike and slid down the hill on his forearms - nasty! Cut Man came home and was worried about losing his "precious blood!"
Poor little Spot Man was the boy who came down with chicken pox right before Easter and sorrowfully watched the rest of us hunt eggs from the living room window! He also got measles at a most inopportune time. (Now you know that none of us are 'spring chickens' - we pre-date such vaccines!)
I think that children must have rubber bones because they usually don't get hurt seriously. At least I didn't have to contend with what my grandmother dealt with. Mother said that, "Every once in a while we would hear this 'thump' and 'moan' and we'd know: Robert fell off the roof again!" This was not too bad unless Robert fell into the basement stairs area which was concrete.
Boys will be boys and boys should be boys, running and biking around, playing with their friends, etc. The minor injuries will follow. I spent my share of time in the local emergency room, getting the girls stitched up. The boys seemed to have more non-emergency injuries and went to the doctor's office.
In every family, there seems to be ONE child who gets in trouble more than the others, is more outspoken or 'sassy.' Looking back, I can see that one of my brothers was the family scapegoat. Yes, he deserved to get in trouble for his (minor) aggravations, but sometimes, if the fault was unknown, he got blamed. This was not fair to him.
"Scapegoat" is an interesting word, having origins in the Bible, Book of Leviticus, Chapter 16: 20-22. "When he has completed the atonement rite for the sanctuary, the meeting tent and the altar, Aaron (the high priest) shall bring forward the live goat. Laying both hands on its head, he shall confess over it all the sinful faults and transgressions of the Israelites, and so put them on the goat's head. He shall then have it led into the desert by an attendant. Since the goat is to carry off their inequities to an isolated region, it must be sent away into the desert."
Looking back, I can also see that one of my children was the Family Scapegoat. How tragic! I wish I had been aware of this. Check out your own family, if you have growing-up age children. You wouldn't want one of them unfairly blamed.
Lord, we pray, it is hard in the middle of the family whirlwind of activities to straighten out children's squabbles and easy to blame the kid that's always getting into trouble. Help us avoid blaming those who don't deserve it. We try hard to be fair! Let your justice be our model.
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