A couple of years ago, I had two little boys visiting me. I had a preschooler and a baby, and no real experience of older boys, so when the little one (5) said he'd had no dinner last night, and the older one (8) would shout that he was a liar and that they had had pizza and chips and beans and he must have forgotten, I put it down to little kids being kids - and truth be told, my 5 year old has forgotten what he had for tea last night.
ANd when they looked dirty all the time, I figured that little boys often are dirty, doing dirty things.
And when they used to turn up in the rain with no coats, I figured that you can't always control what kids wear.
And when they ate me out of house and frigging home, anything they could get their hands on, I figured they were growing, active little lads, who were always playing out, and enjoyed the novelty of someone else's fridge.
ANd so, it came as a surprise when I bumped into them at 1pm one day and they asked (both of them, for once) if they could come for breakfast. SO I rang their mother, and she said they were supposed to have had cereal before they left the house, and thaat they knew they weren't allowed to go out without breakfast
So I challenged the youngest, on his own. And he said there wasn't any food, and there were no clean bowls anyway.
SO I went round, and I took the boys with me. And on the side was a box of crunchy nut cornflakes, unopened, and two bowls .... but the bowls were warm, like they had just been washed, and there was no other food in the house, in the fridge, in the cupboards. And their mother was next door.
ANd STILL I didn't fucking twig. She said she hadn't realised she had run out of cereal, and was buying some stuff from the (very close) Tesco in a minute, for their lunch, and that they should have woken her to tell her there was nothing to eat.
I let those boys down that summer. I shouold have called the sociaal services, but she was a friend, and the older child was so often callin g the younger one a liar that I thought it must be fine at home and the little one was just after my biscuit tin. I took 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and never did put them together.
In the end, someone did call the social, aand they did get involved, and she has pulled her act together .... because we live on a tight knit council estate, and we are watching her.
I could have improved their liv es, and I was too ignorant, dithery and lost in my own issues to do so. I won't ever forgive myself for that, so be glad you rang them when you did.