Hi, Catalina. Your piece about begging with babies reminded me of something I read in Joy Sorman’s “Paris Gare du Nord”. She spent a week living in the station to write a book about it. Someone who had been watching the passengers come and go on the screens for twenty-one years saw “une jeune femme faisant la manche. Puis il l’a vue enceinte. Puis il l’a vu mendier avec son bebe. Aujourd’hui le bebe a vingt ans. C’est un garcon et il mendie a son tour. ” My rough translation: “…a young woman begging. Then he saw her pregnant. Then he saw her begging with her baby. Today the baby is twenty years old. He’s a boy, and he’s begging in his turn.”
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Hi Leo, as I searched quite a bit on line I found similar stories, videos, news interest stories from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Reporters following groups of the women with babies. The “begging with a baby” phenomenon seems to be widespread in large urban cities. Although it is not criminal to “beg” it does seem to be child endangerment which is criminal. Sad.
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I saw this happen once in Mesa AZ, early in the day approaching triple digit heat; (presumably) the mother with a baby in a stroller. She was there 2 days in a row at the same time that I saw, with a sign that said she needed to get a hotel room for the night. I gave her $5 and was able to see a squiggly sweaty baby with a bottle of water. I’ll never forget it. At the time I thought, “sincere or not, it’s not for me to judge. When she gets what she needs they will get out of the heat.”
Hi, Catalina. Your piece about begging with babies reminded me of something I read in Joy Sorman’s “Paris Gare du Nord”. She spent a week living in the station to write a book about it. Someone who had been watching the passengers come and go on the screens for twenty-one years saw “une jeune femme faisant la manche. Puis il l’a vue enceinte. Puis il l’a vu mendier avec son bebe. Aujourd’hui le bebe a vingt ans. C’est un garcon et il mendie a son tour. ” My rough translation: “…a young woman begging. Then he saw her pregnant. Then he saw her begging with her baby. Today the baby is twenty years old. He’s a boy, and he’s begging in his turn.”
Hi Leo, as I searched quite a bit on line I found similar stories, videos, news interest stories from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Reporters following groups of the women with babies. The “begging with a baby” phenomenon seems to be widespread in large urban cities. Although it is not criminal to “beg” it does seem to be child endangerment which is criminal. Sad.
I saw this happen once in Mesa AZ, early in the day approaching triple digit heat; (presumably) the mother with a baby in a stroller. She was there 2 days in a row at the same time that I saw, with a sign that said she needed to get a hotel room for the night. I gave her $5 and was able to see a squiggly sweaty baby with a bottle of water. I’ll never forget it. At the time I thought, “sincere or not, it’s not for me to judge. When she gets what she needs they will get out of the heat.”