Here is the setting:

 

I am sitting inside a small restaurant facing a table occupied by two ladies and one young boy about 8 years old. The boy has dark, close cropped hair, brown eyes and is very well mannered.  The two ladies are different in age, size and complexion.  One sitting with her back towards and closest to me is a rather large solid figure with short cropped brunette hair, the other who sits opposite the other and facing me on the same side as the boy, is also large but not as tall and has blond above the shoulder hair. 

 

It is a warm afternoon and there are shaded cafe tables outside the restaurant. From where I sit I can see a mother and a young girl also about 8 years old sitting waiting for their lunch to arrive.  The little girl has long blond curls that are gently blowing in the warm breeze and she is wearing a bright yellow print dress with matching yellow shoes - very pretty little girl.

 

The two ladies with the young boy are speaking directly to each other and not engaging the young boy for some 5 minutes or so. He has noticed the pretty little girl and shyly observes her as she talks to her mother and waits for their lunch to arrive.

 

Suddenly his mother catches him looking at the pretty little girl and begins to berate him - telling him how odd he is, how odd he makes others feel when he stares at them, how rude he is being and how very much he would not like it if others stared at him.

 

The boy's mother goes on much too long and makes the same points over and over.  The boy not knowing what to do with himself says "alright" in his surprisingly deep voice and takes a sip of water.  His mother takes him to task for taking a sip of water and saying that it was "alright" when she is telling him that it is not alright.  This is a ludicrous thing for his mother to say because he obviously wasn't saying that it was alright to stare at someone he was saying "alright, I know I shouldn't".  The little girl is oblivious to all of this because she is outside the restaurant - outside the glass windows.  Still the mother won't stop and begins to stare at the little boy and asks him how it makes him feel and did he like it. 

 

The little boy just takes it.  The larger woman just let's it happen.  I just let it happen.  Still the mother goes on.

 

The little boy has down syndrome. His narrow gaze searches for something safe to look at. 

 

He stares blankly out in space as his mother drives the same point home over and over that he doesn't like it when people stare at him - so he shouldn't stare at other people.  As if there was something wrong with the gaze of an innocent boy.

 

I want to shout at the mother - "Of course he doesn't like it when people stare at him - because they are staring at him for his defect - not because they are admiring his looks on a warm summer day".  There is a big difference between the innocent look that age appropriate people gaze at members of the opposite sex with and the look that ignorant cretins give to people that are different than themselves. For one minute of absent minded reverie he is relentlessly skewered by his mother for 7 never ending minutes.

 

He saw a pretty girl - younger than him perhaps when you allow for his condition making him a bit too small for his years - but still a very pretty little girl on a warm summer day.  He was watching her as his adult companions droned on about things that he was not engaged with.  Who could blame him? 

I lose my appetite.  The little boy stares into space as his mother and her companion revert to their conversation that excludes the little boy entirely.

 

I pay the bill and leave.