Gender studies, how would you answer this kid?

Hi, I'm back.

Starting my dream career in a bang by working in the local museum staff, I was tasked on the crafts-and-activities sessions that start every morning there. We are a free-entry museum funded by donations, so many parents bring over their kids to tour around the area and socialize.

Currently, this month, we've got this kid coming on the weekends for a whole day alone. Since this is a small museum, thankfully we are always able to keep an eye on him. This is nothing new, tons of parents bring kids and leave them to their artifact-hunting and clay-work for an hour or two. This boy is left til closing. I was tagged a couple of times before to sit with him and walk with him through the galleries. He's a quiet kid at first, but he's always hyperactive and imaginative after a while.

Yesterday, though, after showing him the in-progress room in making the dinosaur exhibition, he was morose and quiet. until finally, he admits that he hears a lot of people telling off one of his parents. After asking why, he says he doesn't know. Only that something bad happened before which made his dad go to the hospital, and made him mum disappear off to work all of a sudden. He doesn't know why his family life had suddenly changed, and it's scares him. It had bothered him even worse though, that the friends of the family have began to tell off his mother whenever they come by, because his mother started working. That's the only amount of details he has managed to say. Before it was only his dad that worked, it seems.

That was when he started to ask me why they'd do that. Why would his mom leave him, and why is everyone so angry at her as well.

We were all hard-pressed over this question back at the staff. After his mom came for him, we found out his dad was a road-worker when he broke his back, and they're hoping on the eventual surgery. I could only tell him that his mom is going out to work so his dad would get better faster, and that her friends are only worried and that's why they're stressed out. Unfortunately, we can't really know what really's going on. Only that the woman seemed to be trying to juggle way too many things, and that the kid is feeling confused and scared.