Let’s rather be positive

Sir,
It is with a heavy heart that I’m writing this letter.
At first I was shocked and furious, but now I am heartbroken. My husband and I have lived in Dundee our whole lives, and will probably never move away. Our roots are set in this breathtaking, tight-knit town of ours… the perfect place to raise our three children.
And then yesterday I had the shock of my life! My kids and I – oh yes, and my youngest daughter’s new puppy, who she doesn’t leave for a second – set off to their play date and to do some business in town.
After everything was finally done we stopped for a cool drink and headed home, all three of them dead tired by this time. As luck would have it, I remembered I’d forgotten to drop off an envelope at a friend. We made a U-turn and headed back to town. By this time the kids had just had it. They were tired and begging not to walk with me, three shops down from where I was parked (and yes – I was lucky enough to get a parking the first time I circled the block at ABSA).
I never leave my kids in the car. I guess I’m one of those paranoid mothers who believes that someone will kidnap my kids or hijack my car with all my kids in it (although I’m pretty sure the culprits will bring them straight back after five minutes in the car with them…).
So to get back to the story, I refused to leave them in the car. However, the lady in the car two cars from mine, who knows us very well, heard what was going on. She offered to keep an eye on them as I quickly ran into the shop.
Off course the kids were delighted! I rolled down the windows, just enough so someone couldn’t reach in, made sure they had their juices, made sure the puppy was still asleep on Little Miss Know-it-all’s lap. I locked the doors, thanked Mrs H and dashed to my friend’s workplace.
Not even two minutes later I returned to hear the most shocking news. Apparently as I was running from the car, a lady stepped closer, phoned someone with my car make, number plate, the number of ‘abused children’ who were ‘sitting in the blazing sun, gasping for air, dehydrated and red in the face’, and that is not even the worst part. There was a dog! A small helpless puppy being loved to death in the backseat! What a terrible, abusive mother, to leave her children alone in a car without supervision.
Off course she didn’t want to hear anything from Mrs H, she had already made her own assumptions and just as quickly disappeared as she appeared.
I got back into my car, looked at my three kids who were still playing and laughing in the back seat, having no idea that they were apparently just abused. 
I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth was happening to our town. For a second I was furious!
Where are the days when we stayed in the car (out of our own free will of course) when my mother did her shopping? The only reason that we wanted to stay in the car was that almost every old lady who passed the car would dig out a sweet from her handbag and hand it to us through the small opening in the window. 
Just to rub salt in my wounds, when I got home I looked at the Courier’s Facebook page, where they were asking, ‘How do we know that we are in Dundee?’ Out of 22 comments I read, there were only three that were positive!
We should all just stop for a moment. Look beyond the litter in the streets and see the people working and trying their best to pick up the litter – that we throw around by the way – and keep our town clean.
Look beyond the car signalling to go right and then turning left, and see the driver who most probably made an innocent mistake.
Look beyond the bumps in Victoria Street, slow down, take that time to take a fresh look around you and appreciate our little town.
Look beyond the broken traffic lights, take this time to wave or smile at the cars as they pass you one by one.
Look past all the pedestrians walking in front of your car and see how many older people and children are rushing to catch their lifts home. Appreciate the fact that you are fortunate enough to have a vehicle.
And yes, maybe our neighbours do know more about our personal lives than we do, but at least we know that they care. We are still fortunate enough to be able to walk over to our neighbours for a quick hello, and of course have a warm cup of coffee.
Let’s face it, the roaming cows, goats, donkeys, sheep and even geese are a wonderful sight-seeing adventure for our kids! We Dundonians don’t even have to take our kids for an outing to a farm! Where else can you get that?
Not-so-abusive-mother