Batman, Kindness, and Life Lessons for Kids

“Sometimes people are just jerks.”  These are the not so deep or overly-thought out words that I said to my kids on Sunday.  It’s simple, but true.  “Sometimes people do mean things for no good reason.”  In hind-sight, I’m not sure what a good reason for being mean is…

I said this because when we got to our van after spending the afternoon at the zoo, I saw that someone had ripped off my new Batman sticker.  It said (with symbols) “Peace, love, and Batman.” I thought it was awesome when I saw it on ebay and thought it was the perfect way to make my mini-van a little more me and to represent my new found obsessive love of Batman without being too extreme.  I still want to fit in at the school parent pick-up line, after all… 😉

I had gotten the sticker, just a few days ago, and proudly put it on my window, across from the elementary school magnet. 

So, when I saw my sticker ripped off and thrown on the ground, it stung a little. 

The really strange thing is that they very carefully took off only the peace symbol and the heart, but left the Bat symbol.  It is so perfectly done, they must’ve had a razor blade.  Apparently, the jerk had issue with peace and love, but Batman’s ok.  Strange.

The boys were upset.  Why would someone do this, they kept asking.  I started with “sometimes people are just jerks.”  And, then realized that I, at least, had an opportunity for a life lesson.  I said that most people are nice, but sometimes there are people that will do mean things for no good reason.  I told them that I knew they would never do something like that (finger crossed!) and that’s because they are better than that. 

After talking about it for a few minutes, I got in the van and discovered that there was a wet diaper stuck under my windshield wiper.  Seriously?  That’s extra disturbing since that meant they had a child who must’ve seen them mess with my van.  Sad.

The boys had more questions after that, but I really didn’t have any better answers.  

William wanted to call the police, but I explained that they really couldn’t do anything about it and would have no way of knowing who did it.

Then, Antwan said “I’ve got an idea. What about the superheroes?”

I was confused.  “What?”

“We can go home and get our superhero costumes and come back and get them.” 

(We actually do all have superhero/crime-fighter costumes.  And, yes, Batman is involved…)