Anti-Climacus

A brief word on volunteering to work with children, since it's come up:

I worked as a tutor for the Durham Rescue Mission (a sort of comprehensive program for helping people to avoid or transition out of homelessness; there are separate campuses for men and women & children) when I was in grad school. Their starting assumption was that you were suspect. This was true for everyone, but especially for the men. You proved yourself to not be suspect only through a long period of exemplary conduct. And I think that's the way it should be: if you are serious about the process of mentoring, being in all respects the best person you are capable of being is a necessary minimum requirement--all the more so when you're dealing with kids who have had family trauma and may not have any male role models.* So the fact that people may be wary of you doesn't--shouldn't--matter, because you will meet and exceed all those expectations anyway.


* The guy who coordinated the tutoring from our end had a lot of very strict rules about it: you were only allowed to tutor if you could show up every week--missing periodically wasn't an option. We spent a lot of time thinking about how to best balance homework and enrichment and fun. We even thought about our interactions with each other and how important it was to show male friendships where the people involved take an interest in each others' lives and work. I say this not to make us sound exceptional, which we (or at least I) certainly weren't; I think what we did was standard. But if it's important to you the suspicion someone may have is the least of your concerns.