And now back to my regularly scheduled angst
We’re home. Ten seconds after we arrived we had to deal with two dead fish. Ten minutes later we were dealing with lunch and getting to the last t-ball game of the season on time. Two minutes after that Helena had taken the skin off her nose and Daniel was howling, “I didn’t do it,” which he hadn’t, although no one had accused him either.
T-ball. Supermarket. Fish burials. Playdates arranged for the coming week and some unpacking done. It’s stinky hot in Philly so we thought we’d go into the back yard (concrete postage stamp) and play in the sprinkler. The children erupted into the loudest, screechiest catfight of the week. There was violence. There were tears. In the end, they were sent to two separate rooms to lie down until supper.
In the middle of all this, while the children were still outside trying to negotiate an armistice at the top of their bloody lungs, the next door neighbor said, in a pause between the howls, “Why don’t you scream a little louder.”
I cringed. I quailed. I knew the children were behaving badly but the sarcastic comment from the invisible “we’re too sexy to reproduce” couple next door cut me down to something smaller than I like to be. In general, I don’t like to parent to the public. I don’t reprimand my children more in public than in private – the rules stay the same wherever we are. And yet, had we been in a field or a desert or on the moon, I would have let them sort things out in their own Lord of the Flies sort of way. You get tired of intervening, negotiating, reprimanding, reminding and policing. But we live cheek by jowl in the urban village, ten feet from three other houses and with three dozen houses well within earshot. In this context, all our private struggles are intensely public. We can’t argue with the windows open because the neighborhood can hear (as I can hear them). Any music you play, you share.
I like living in the city for all sorts of reasons. And I think that the tendency to isolate ourselves from one another is worrying. But I don’t like being judged and found wanting. And in this very public city, all parenting is right there for the world to see, to judge and to condemn.
Isallright, really. Children will be in bed in ten minutes — after Ed is finished bathing them, and I don’t hear many screams from the bathroom. And then we will watch Buffy. We have embarked on an enlightening and educational summer project. To watch every episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Grrr, argh. I am unnaturally excited.
Love that “too sexy to reproduce” line.
A pox on her.
We watched all of Buffy as an educational winter project. Grr Argh Fantastic.
Love the thought of evil body-snatching Bradys.
I know a few of those too sexy to reproduce peeps too. And as for the PIP (parenting in public) I struggle with that too. Yuck.
I think you are right about letting them figure it out though. Intervening all the time just encourages tattling and shit.
The “too sexy” people feel entitled to judge because they don’t have kids and their limits and their kids limits are never tested. Kids get tired, they fight, they feel all the same shit we feel with less (supposedly) boundaries and blinders than us mature adults. Heat, re-adjustments, etc. affect them as much as they do us. And I am not talking about spoiled, indulged children – just little human beings. It sucks to feel (as I know I do) self conscious about your own parenting style but good for you for not buckling under. You are not wanting at all; perhaps if your kids had been as rude to you or the neighbours as the neighbour had been then you might want to re-exam your parenting skills – why is it that society tells us as parents our job is to supress and quash every instinct and feeling in our kids for someone else’s comfort? The parenting I despise are the parents who whack and shame their kids; or who let their kids sit in their rooms with their TV’s and computers never socializing. Please! Parent on!
I can thoroughly endorse re- watching Buffy – every single episode of all 7 series… I’m just waiting for an excuse to settle down to watch every episode of Angel, then Firefly. I’m sure that quality ‘me’ time with a positive assertive feminine role model (in the case of Buffy) vastly improves my self perception of my parenting skills.
Your kids are lovely – I know because of how you write about them. Your neighbour was probably just taking out their frustration with the heat in your direction.
I was once half of a childless couple. Too young, too know-it-all, too selfish to understand the world of children and parents. Maybe those two next door will never get their comeuppance – but I prefer to think they will – because I did. I did, I did, I did… and I get it now. Oh, how I get it. I hope, that when I start to say or think to myself (about something with which I’ve never had to deal) “I would never allow…” that I will bite my tongue. And bite it hard.
I’m willing to bet that any other neighbor with children who heard that comment thought her his or herself, “What an ignorant bitch.”
You’re doing beautifully. And unlike your neighbor, I know what I’m talking about.
I don’t have children, but I hope I would have the good sense not to say something that nasty.
I highly recommend Angel as well. I don’t think that show ever got the respect it deserved.
That couple next door sounds annoying. You should have started arguing and screaming childishly like the children . . .just to piss them off more!!!
God, I hate people. OK, sure, if it were 10 o’clock at night, maybe he’d have had a point. (I’m assuming somehow that it was the male half of the TStR couple.) But, hello, the middle of a summer afternoon, can’t you just roll your eyes at your beautiful spouse and say “what’s up their nose, d’you reckon?”
Those neighbors of yours are bastards. It makes sense to me now why I shot him a dirty look the other day as we passed each other on the sidewalk. It surprised me, and I thought to myself, ‘Was that necessary?’. It was!
They went to Belgium for the summer. No doubt to escape our noisy kids, or Kaela’s dirty looks