Playground Rant

OR: Why You Are Irritating Me

Let me preface this rant with a statement - The upcoming diatribe is purely my opinion. As a human adult, I have my very own opinion. It may or may not differ from yours. If you feel strongly about your differing opinion, please feel free to let me know.

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The weather here has finally rounded the corner from winter to spring! Sap is rising in our plants and our spirits. Lily Ruth has re-fallen in love with a neighborhood playground. It is an easy walk away from our house, and if no one else is around, Dottie Dog can run a few leash-free laps around the adjoining baseball field.

A few days ago, I decided to attempt to circumvent an Arsenic Hour tantrum by taking a late afternoon walk to the playground. I loaded Alec D into the stroller, harnessed up the dog, and passed out sunglasses. Away we went. As we approached the park, we noticed that it was BUSY. Soccer practice on the grass. Picnic-ers and barbeque-ers around the tables, kiddos swarming over the playground equipment. In short, the logical occupancy expectation of a neighborhood park on a gorgeous spring afternoon.

Here's where part one of my rant begins. As we entered the park via the only opening that a stroller can fit through on that particular side, a couple of young ladies were throwing a ball for a unleashed young and very large dog. As I struggled across the grass with a stroller, an excited dog and a petulant four-year-old, the ladies allowed their (illegally) unleashed dog to bound over and tackle my dog. Now, Dottie is an excellent dog who ADORES playing with other dogs, but she is young and a bit small, and if she doesn't feel dominant, she starts snapping - an issue that we intend to address with a trainer as soon as we can afford one. SO, while I am attempting to keep my young children from being bowled over by a dog interaction that is not going well, I am also being wrapped in my dog's (required BY LAW) leash. After a few half-hearted rounds of calling their dog's name, the girls finally make their way over to us and haul their dog off of mine. At this point it becomes evident that they have not even brought a leash for their dog. They simply wait until we are 'far enough' away, then let their dog go again.

Now, I am all for having a well trained dog. I understand their pride in the temperament and obedience of their dog. Don't all dog owners ultimately wish for a perfect pooch who walks calmly by your side without the burden of a leash and responds instantly to hand signals and quiet commands? It sure would be nice... But the truth is, even if your dog is perfect, you have NO IDEA what any other dog is like. What if the dog your dog approaches off-leash has aggression issues? What if Dottie had been abused and the interaction really scared her? This is not a dog park. It is a people park. What if your rambunctious, good-natured pup had inadvertently caused injury to one of my kids or to my dog because you wish the rules were different?

Ugh. Then I spent our entire park visit hauling on Dottie's leash as she whined and pulled trying desperately to get over to the unleashed dog... who was eventually joined by two other unleashed dogs. All of those dogs got to romp and play. Dottie got to wish.

Ready for part two? Absentee playground parents. Last week, a friend's three-year-old girl harassed on a playground by several six and seven-year-old boys acting as a pack and who's parents made not one appearance. That is one type of hands-off parenting that irritates me. Yes, let your kids run and play and figure stuff out for them selves, but watch them. Do not allow their freedom to include bullying. How is that ever o.k.?

Our experience didn't involve bullying, but it made me a bit more sad. Kids so starved for parental attention that they cling limpet-like to any available adult. As soon as we entered the playground, the circling started. Not at all unusual - kids are curious. They clock each new arrival and gauge the potential for interaction. I started to unbuckle Alec from the stroller, and a young boy (possibly 3 or 4, but big for his age) ran up and started to pull all of the toys from Alec's hands and lap. He proceeded to shake, prod and attempt to 'open' each one. Then the kid turns and starts poking at the dog. All of this happened in less than 10 seconds. I was prying toys from his hands and attempting to step between him and the dog before he stuck his fingers in her mouth. "Aiden. Get over here. Leave them alone. Go play right now" a voice calls out in an unattached, bored manner. Three completely contradictory statements combined with the lack of actual action by the parent in what was obviously an oft-repeated refrain equaled a pretty obvious conclusion - the kid did nothing to change his behavior. In a few seconds, he wheeled off to the next situation... which happened to be shoving Lily Ruth out of the way so that he could use something that her actions had drawn his attention to.

In the mean time, a young girl (maybe 4?) begins drifting toward us. As Lily Ruth, Alec, Dottie and I climbed up the play structure and started playing, she made laps around us. Each lap brought her closer. Meanwhile, Aiden streaked through the center of our group every minute or so. About every third time through, his mother said the same thing: "Aiden. Get over here. Leave them alone. Go play right now." The girl eventually made her way to us, and as we played, she leaned in with naked longing on her face, but never said a word or actually tried to play with us. She sidled in and made several attempts to cut one or both of my kids away from me so that she could take their place. Aiden continued to rush through and kick / bang on things as he passed. Occasionally, he poked at Dottie, grabbed her tail or announced that he was going to unbuckle her harness.

I kept my voice sweet and calm. I kept my hands light and off of kids that weren't my own except to remove other hands from my kids and dog. We just kept moving and changing our play. At each change, these kids shadowed us or ran ahead. They crowded onto ladders as Lily Ruth climbed; knocking her aside and stepping on her. The shoved into the tunnel as she moved toward it. They tried to slip between Alec and I as I guided him up steps and down slides. "Watch me!" "Help me!" "I'm gonna do THIS!" Aiden begged for my attention with loud words and big actions. The girl begged with her eyes and her physical proximity. I never heard her name. No one spoke to her (other than me) the whole time we were there.

The kids and I were quickly overwhelmed. It was time to go. I buckled Alec back in. Aiden grabbed toys and poked at Dottie's ears. "Aiden. Get over here. Leave them alone. Go play right now." He followed us to the edge of the playground. "You NO GO. STAY. Play wif me NOW!"

We walked away... right into a dog ambush from yet another unleashed pooch. Dottie whined and pulled. Lily Ruth whined and dragged her feet. Alec threw his sunglasses down. I mentally stomped my feet and outwardly gritted my teeth.

Maybe next time I will find the fortitude to say something to the dog owners. Maybe next time I will find the energy to better deflect or engage the sad kids. *sigh*

Rant over.

Soapbox Alert!

I read a couple of blogs. Not enough so you'd call me obsessive, but a few more than... say... my mom. My mom reads several blogs that are not mine, but I think that I can safely say that I read more blogs than my mom, but fewer than your mom (<---- that was a joke for my mom who used to giggle indulgently at each wave of nonsensical  'your mom' jokes that swept through a group packed with teenagers who adored her). My point is, I read some blogs. Some are Mommy Blogs. Some are Crafting or Cooking Blogs. I even follow a few blogs that aren't about being a mom who crafts and cooks.

Today I was looking at a blog that I found when one of her posts went viral last year. Her blog is called Nerdy Apple Bottom, and she is known only by the moniker 'Cop's Wife' (she is obviously more internet savvy than myself since I use everybody's real name...). Last Halloween, the author's young son chose to go to school dressed as his favorite Scooby Doo character - Daphne. Her take on motherhood, her approach to life and her aplomb in handling the tornado of media that followed that post make me want to move in next door to her so we can be friends. Her post today made me stop and stare at the computer in silence. Then I wanted to cry. Then I wanted to wake Lily Ruth up so I could deliver a lecture on love, tolerance and acceptance. Not that she needs a lecture, but one was building up, and she's the only one home who uses English as their first language - the dog and the cat use their so-called 'lack of language skills' as a reason to ignore me and/or lick themselves when I start to rant.

So, here's the deal in Nerdy's post, she links to a blog - this blogger describes herself as a 'scientist turned homemaker and joyful convert to Catholicism'. According to her, she is practically afraid to take her kids out in public as there are too many openly gay people in her community.

You can click on the link that I embedded above, but I doubt that the writer will have the courage to leave her post up for much longer (especially since I'm fairly sure that it has already been edited since I first read it), so I'm pasting the body of it here:

The same people who say I shouldn't impose my morality on them, are imposing immorality on me and my children to the point that I literally have a hard time even leaving my home anymore to do something as simple as visit the park. And this is freedom?

I am a Catholic stay-at-home mother of seven, and I live in the state of Massachusetts where "gay marriage" has been legal for seven years and it's just one aspect of the larger secular agenda. Because we have so many little children, it takes a phenomenal effort to go anywhere. We have only filled our truck with gasoline twice this entire summer vacation. We go to Mass and we go two miles up the road to a small outdoor swimming pool. That's pretty much it.

At the pool this summer there were homosexual couples with children and, while I was polite as my own young daughters doted on the baby with two "mommies", I also held my breath in anticipation of awkward questions - questions I'm not ready to answer. My young daughters are all under the age of eight and they are not old enough to understand why a baby would have two women calling themselves "mommies".

When there were two men relaxing at the side of the pool unnaturally close to each other, effeminately rubbing elbows and exchanging doe-eyes, I was again anxiously watching my children hoping they wouldn't ask questions. They don't see Daddy do that with anyone but Mommy. We haven't been back to the pool for a couple of weeks, except once but it rained. The truth is, now I don't really want to go back.

So what am I harping about?

Today we decided to go to the park. We live near a nice park that is safe, clean and quiet. Two of my daughters were in the sandbox, one on the slide, the other on the swings, and as I lifted the baby out of his stroller I looked up to see four women laughing at a baby boy as he was swinging in one of those bucket baby swings. That seems harmless enough, but I'm so sensitized to the strangeness in my community that I've developed this ever-present jumpiness whenever I'm in public. Sure enough, two of the women, so happy to see a baby boy laughing, embraced and remained standing there rubbing each other's back in a way that was clearly not just friendly affection.

This is my community. I find myself unable to even leave the house anymore without worrying about what in tarnation we are going to encounter. We are responsible citizens. We live by the rules, we pay our taxes, we take care of our things. I'm supposed to be able to influence what goes on in my community, and as a voter I do exercise that right. But I'm outnumbered. I can't even go to normal places without having to sit silently and tolerate immorality. We all know what would happen if I asked two men or two women to stop displaying, right in front of me and my children, that they live in sodomy.

So now I go on a rant.

Our taxes are being used to fund contraception, abortion and IVF already. That offends me in ways that are inexpressible. I read last December in the Wall Street Journal how two men near us are raising two assembled daughters after announcing to the world how they killed two other siblings in surrogate mothers in India. Let me guess? I shouldn't offend them though, right? And what's next at the park? A needle exchange drop-box for heroin users? No joke. These things are not isolated, it is all the same issue at a fundamental level. We're being pushed to accept immorality and it's not just on TV and in Washington D.C. It's right in front of us too.

We fund a lot of illegal immigrants here (just ask the President about his auntie) and helping people who really need help is not something I'd ever oppose. But it's still haunting me that just this week I learned of anillegal immigrant who killed a young man innocently out for a ride on his motorcycle. The illegal immigrant, who didn't have a license, was so drunk he didn't notice when he hit a motorcyclist and then dragged the 23 year old college graduate a quarter of a mile while people were yelling at him to stop. When he finally did stop, the young man was still alive until the drunk driver put the car in reverse and backed up over him before driving away. He's charged with vehicular homicide and "reckless conduct creating a risk to a child." He had a six year old in the car with him.

Do you think knowing this happened about seven miles from my home makes me afraid to leave the house? You bet it does. But that just adds to everything else I'm being asked to tolerate. Seriously, is this freedom?

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Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I guess mostly, this kind of thing makes me so sad. Then it makes me angry. Then it makes me want to go out and publicly rub elbows with every gay man who will tolerate me and rub the back of every lesbian within arm's reach. 

I loathe it when 'faith' is used as a cover for fear, ignorance and intolerance. As Bono said: "The God I believe in ain't short of CASH, Mister." My God is a loving god. My God is a tolerant god. My God created us ALL in his image. That's right, my God looks like every single person on this planet, and he loves us all... except the dummies and the haters. All right, fine. He loves the dummies and the haters too. 

Why is that poor woman so afraid? What is so scary about loving parents? Why does she think that lesbians commit sodomy?

So I let my daughter nap, and I send up a prayer for her. That she live her whole life surrounded by true, real love in any and every form. That she recognize that love and honor it. That she notice and embrace the differences in the people around her. Amen.

Another (VERY IMPORTANT) Soapbox

As the mother of a girl, as a woman and as a citizen in this society, I feel that have a responsibility to stand up about this:

One of my favorite blogs - Not That Kind Of Girl - posted a bit outside of her norm yesterday. She's taking a stand against a tequila commercial and for the right to have informed consent before sexual contact. Yesterday's original post can be found here. Language alert: this woman is angry, and pulling no punches. She has given her thoughts time to simmer, condense and reorganize. Her additional thoughts are here.

I'm not sure what form my soapbox will take on this issue, but I'm going to start with a letter to Sauza.

I'm worried enough about the 'dating world' that my daughter will enter. In today's climate, buying a girl a drink means that she's obligated to (at the very least) give you her phone number. Buying her several drinks (or dinner) supposedly assures you a sexual encounter. I want to teach my daughter that her body belongs to HER, and cannot be bought with alcohol, food, bullying or deceit. I want her to value herself and her integrity above her desire to be 'liked' or 'included'. Standing up and demanding change in the images that children, teens, young adults - heck EVERYONE - are bombarded with is a good place to start.

Soapbox Moment

*** Caution - talk of Lady Doctor stuff coming up. You've been forewarned.

Ya'll, I am livid. I had my follow up appointment after the miscarriage today. The first thing that ticked me off was that I drove all the way out there for what would have been just a verbal follow up. That's right. They plunked me down in the doctor's office like I was there to interview her. Why go in for an appointment if all they're doing is blood pressure, weight and talking to me? Ohhhhhh, that's right. They can charge my insurance company for all of that... fantastic.

Since we were there and talking, she asked if I wanted to go ahead and get my annual exam out of the way. Sure. Why not? So there I am - stirrups, gaping gown and all. She had just finished my breast exam, and had seemed startled that I was still nursing. Fair enough. A lot of mamas have weaned long before 21 months. Whatever. We've chosen not to wean yet. She was right in the middle of the speculum portion of my day when she lays this one on me: 'You know, I just wonder if your nursing had anything to do with the miscarriage. Like maybe the hormone imbalance with the nursing was involved somehow.' I almost came unglued.

First of all, women have nursed through pregnancies and even tandem nursed multiple children for CENTURIES. I don't even have the energy to write out my feelings about extended breast feeding here. Suffice it to say that I truly hope to have Lily Ruth weaned before the next baby arrives, but I do not believe in cutting off nursing because you are tying to conceive.

Secondly, WHO TELLS A WOMAN THAT A MISCARRIAGE WAS HER FAULT!? I don't believe that what she said was true, but I do believe that it was incredibly insensitive of her to say it at all.

I was so impressed by this practice. I loved the staff. It's too bad that I'll have to find somewhere else to go once I do finally conceive again.