A guy with ten kids, but unknowing to most he has a very well paying job(makes way more money than I do) and his “wives” do as well. But he feeds the kids nothing but flour dumplings and has them wearing stained and holey shirts and pants.
So people feel bad for him and donate their kid’s overgrown clothes and other items like tupperwear and such.
I watched him in his yard get a good fire going, and then take a stack of what looked like new clothes and plastic food bowls and feed them piece by piece to the fire. :eek:
To make it clear his kids wear old yellowed t shirts with holes in them, and are always begging me for snacks and food and toys saying their dad can’t afford a ball.
This whole thing disgusts me. dude is a neighbor and he burns any “charity”.
Fuck sake I accept outgrown shoes and clothes gladly, and give gladly but not to him!
EDIT:Context before someone complains, we’re in Trinidad not the USA. I’m from the USA.
I’m betting that Trinidad has some kind of CPS equivalent. This really isn’t a message board type question - it sounds like those kids are in real danger. Feeding your kid nothing but dumplings and depriving them of basic needs when you have plenty of money is abuse in my book. Given that he’s comfortable with the public seeing that much, there’s probably a LOT more going on behind closed doors.
This seems to be the applicable law. The only mention of other kinds of child abuse that a quick search brings up (searching through the index provided by TT’s Minsitry of Legal Affairs) is of porn. I get the same impression as grude, that so long as the kids are being mistreated but not beaten, the attitude of the authorities is “why are you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?” Extra maluses for being a foreigner.
To make it clear the disgust emotion is about the burning of perfectly good kid’s clothes and kitchen stuff people give him instead of using or refusing it, nothing more. If he doesn’t want it I feel he could refuse.
If you don’t have kids you probably would not understand but clothes are outgrown every 3-6 months completely, so you have a lot of perfectly good clothes which are unwearable. It is crazy if you have a growth spurty kid, whole new wardrobe several times a year!
I have told other local people about how disgusted I was and they just say well he is a guy who doesn’t like charity, with the added complication of possible worry about spiritual contamination possibly of the donated items.
People have told me how as kids they lied to the neighbors to get extra food/snacks, like saying mommy did not give me breakfast:( So who knows, the kids are the source of the feeds us only dumplings thing. To be fair none of them look starved or malnourished.
Maybe he believes that “You must live by the sweat of your brow” and accepting charity…or allowing others to by his actions or inactions…would violate scripture.
Then why would he accept the stuff in the first place? It’s evil theatrics to accept donated items and then burn them in front of the kids. That’s pretty twisted.
In all seriousness, you should go up to him and ask him why he’s doing it. This is a situation where you can affect some good, don’t waste it. Any concerns about not sticking your nose into it, or if he would turn against you, or whatever is irrelevant in the face of what he’s doing. Ask him why, then offer to take the items yourself if he doesn’t want it. Spread the word to others not to donate to him because he doesn’t want it anyways and you’re doing him a favor
As was stated in the OP, the guy makes a good living and has plenty of money to provide for his family. The clothes and food provided by others is not charity, it is people telling him that they disapprove of how he raises his kids.
If he doesn’t want charity, then he should refuse it when offered. He accepted perfectly good items that some needy person could have put to good use, and then destroyed them.
He had the right to destroy them. You have the right to tell him he’s a dick.