ever-fixed mark

Let’s talk slide etiquette. While at the playground, do you allow your kids to climb up the business end of the slide, or do you force them to go up the ladder, as God intended?

On the one hand, I can see the value of maintaining an orderly traffic pattern. Banning the up-slope climb reduces the incidence of collisions and falls. It’s definitely safer. On the other hand, the whole damn jungle gym is unsafe. Given that, is it really so bad if the kids climb up the slide? I mean, no other section of the jungle gym has a one-way rule. Isn’t orderly play an oxymoron? Doesn’t it conjure up pictures of the kids in A Wrinkle in Time bouncing their little balls in unison?

The way I see it, you’re doomed no matter what you do. If you allow your kid to climb, it’s unfair to the kids whose parents are making them obey the rule. And if you impose the no-climbing rule on your child, it’s like an indictment of those parents who are letting their kids climb with impunity.

Here is a modest proposal: Since I have so many other disciplinary issues to address with my boys, I would love to throw caution to the wind and let them play as they will. Can we all agree to refrain from interfering unless someone’s child is in imminent danger of serious physical harm? At least, until the kids start doing this?

Speaking of the playground, the New York Times reviewed two books about nannies this weekend, and the reviewer recounted an incident from Lucy Kaylin’s And Nanny Makes Three as follows:

One day when her Jamaican nanny, Hy, had to take a few hours off, Lucy Kaylin, the executive editor of Marie Claire, took her children — 5-year-old Sophie and 2-year old Owen — to the park herself.

Aware of the nannies eyeing her from the playground’s benches, she gave Owen a hearty push on the swing to show the spies how fun-loving a real mother could be.

Glancing back at the benches, expecting approval, she saw “nothing but horror.” Whipping her head around, she saw her son dangling, his head nearly smacking the ground.

“My experience in this area was so limited — the park being Hy’s realm — that I didn’t even know Owen was too young for this much speed and height, and that the bucket-style swing would have suited him better,” Ms. Kaylin writes.

Ms. Kaylin is clearly an idiot, but not (only) because she nearly decapitated her kid on the swings. She’s an idiot because she thought that this sort of “I’m so removed from my kids’ lives that I can barely find the playground on a map” pose would contribute anything useful to the public discourse on child care. What really burns is that this anecdote will be interpreted as evidence that we “corporate types” (i.e., working parents) are deficient mothers. For the record, I have a full time job, I’ve visited the playground more times today than Ms. Kaylin apparently has in her life, and I have never given my toddler a head injury on the swingset, even if I do let him climb backwards up the slide.

A park lies across the street from our house, and at the far end is a quaintly old-fashioned brick elementary school. The structure dates back to the 19th century, and unfortunately its quaintness extends beyond the facade to the inside. The school has no cafeteria, no gymnasium, no auditorium, no athletic fields. Nothing is up to code, so nothing can really be properly renovated unless the whole thing is redone. Every summer, the fire inspector threatens to close the school for some infraction or another. Last year, I was told, a local contractor performed some Labor Day weekend heroics that allowed the school to open on time. Since then, the City Council decided that it’s not feasible to keep open a school that will eventually need to be replaced or gutted. The school will close for good this summer.

The other two elementary schools are already overcrowded, so to accommodate the additional 60 kids, the schools are being completely restructured. All the kindergarten classes will be housed at one schools. All the first through fourth grades will be housed at the other. Fifth and sixth grades will be moved to the middle school, where they will be maintained separately from the seventh and eighth graders, with different principals and staff. The newly renovated (but not-yet-paid-for) high school will remain as is. This means that if our boys go to public school they will travel through three different buildings before they’re out of fifth grade.

It’s a small town, so that’s not such a huge concern. The farthest school is only a mile and a half away, so they’re all technically walking distance. The big problem is the budget cuts that are accompanying these changes. The district, which has already lost 36 teaching positions in the last few years, is slated to lose another 30 next year. Foreign language is being cut in the middle school. Class size will increase, foreign language at the middle school will be eliminated, and one English or history teacher from each middle-school team will be fired, leaving the other to combine both subjects in a “humanities” course. I used to teach middle-school English, and this sounds like a very bad idea to me. Public school teachers are (supposed to be) certified in their subject areas, and although it’s certainly possible to stay one chapter ahead of a bunch of seventh-graders in a subject in which you are not an expert, it’s not desirable. If it were a great idea, every school district in the country would be firing English teachers.

Did I mention that the high school is in danger of losing its accreditation?

In response to the proposed cuts, a group of concerned parents formed a political action group to push for a tax override intended to be used to restore the positions. With the override, each household’s yearly tax bill would increase between $90 and $450, depending on property value. One of my fellow playgroup members asked for my help, so I became the “data guru” for her ward. I was very surprised to learn that this group, using a six-degrees-of-separation methodology, was compiling information on how different people were likely to vote so they could focus their efforts on undecideds. My job was to input the information into a fully functional web-based database that they threw together in a few days. I must be very naïve about politics, because I had no idea a small grassroots group could organize that quickly or efficiently.

Unfortunately, the referendum on the override took place last week, and it failed, with about 60% of the voters opposing the increase. I believe the vote split mostly along age lines, with parents of young children generally in favor and older people generally against. The political group will try to have the override question reinstated on the November ballot, but I don’t think another campaign will change any minds. The “no” voters don’t want their taxes to go up, are upset about the conditions that led to this budget crisis in the first place, and want to work on reform at the federal level instead of funding increases through property taxes. The “yes” voters feel the exact same way, but at the same time realize what a disaster it will be to lose 30 positions from the school district next year.

So now what? Unfortunately, there are not a lot of alternatives to the public school system. There is one private Catholic school, close enough to see from my window. They have a lot of applicants and can afford to restrict enrollment to sincere church supporters, which we are not. There is one private Montessori school, which is reputably good, but tuition is high and the kids would have to transition to another school by fifth grade anyway. There is one charter Montessori school that runs from kindergarten through eighth grade; unfortunately, the waiting list is twice as large as the current school enrollment, and next year several hundred people are expected to apply for fewer than 20 kindergarten places. (By the way, the closest private prep school, perhaps in anticipation of the soon-to-increase applicant pool, recently changed its name from the unfortunate “Governor Dummer Academy” to the more blue-blood sounding “Governor’s Academy.” Damn it, I was really looking forward to sending my kids to “Dummer.”)

I have friends who have decided to move over this, and others who are thinking about moving. That seems drastic to me. This is a wealthy community. If we can’t get this right, than who can? Certainly, with “school choice” programs in place, schools have to respond to community needs to continue to attract students, but at some point doesn’t the community have to turn around and support the schools as well? I’m starting to fear that the community gets the schools it deserves, and our long disengagement from these issues proves that we don’t deserve a whole lot. I include myself in the “disengaged” group, because this is the first school issue I’ve followed in the five years I’ve lived here.

The one good thing that came out of this election was an increased awareness, as demonstrated by the high voter turnout: 46%. If even some of the no-voters are willing to work with the rest of us on finding some solution to the school crisis that does not include raising property taxes, it will be a bonus.

What this really brings home, for me, is a sense that we cannot entrust our children’s education to the schools, whether they live out their tenure in the public schools or they end up at Andover or Exeter. However they spend their days at school, we’re going to have to make sure they get reinforcement in the basics and critical thinking skills at home. I’m not talking about formal sit-down lessons, but enrichment that’s integrated into home life. I hope I will know how to do that.

Even so, I hope they reinstate foreign language, music, and English by the time they get into middle school, because that’s a lot of curriculum to cover on the weekends.

As I mentioned before, I am training for a 10-mile race. Notice that I don’t commit to anything as definite as “I am planning to run a 10-mile race.” The race in question is in early August and is infamous for really hot, humid weather. Last year I ran the 5K with the heat index in the hundreds. The previous year there was a little rainstorm just before the start, and then the sun came out and it all turned to clouds of steam. I walked to the corner with Dog to cheer on a friend who was running the 10-mile, and after 10 minutes standing in the tropical atmosphere I couldn’t wait to get back in the air conditioning. I never saw my friend, because she was too far back. Later she told me in all seriousness it was the worst day of her life.

So, racing is optional, but training proceeds. This morning, I had planned to run at 6:30 to avoid the heat. Before I woke up I had a dream that I woke up and it was still dark outside, and I was worried about running in the dark. But when I actually woke up I was shocked to see that 6:30 in these parts already features full sun.

I had planned a route of mostly back roads, hoping to avoid the stress of running alongside a lot of cars. Like most runners, I usually run on the left side so I can see traffic coming, even if they can’t see me. Mid-mile 2 I saw a pick-up truck gunning pretty fast around a curve toward me. I stepped onto the shoulder to give as much clearance as possible, and my left ankle twisted and I went down. I must have done a kind of barrel roll, because I managed to scrape the hell out of my right knee AND my left elbow. The truck never stopped to see if I was OK. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t see me fall.

Then I got up and finished my run, dripping AB negative over four miles of country road, because that’s the kind of badass I am. Also, because it didn’t hurt that much. At least, until I stopped. Then the cuts really began to sting. I ended my run downtown (because the run I had originally planned was 1/4 mile short of six miles, and I figured out that from my house to Starbucks was a quarter mile, all downhill), and when I went into the coffeeshop a woman looked at my wounds and said, “Did you have a wipeout?” And I totally lost a golden opportunity to use the comeback, “You should see the other guy!”

Since my iPod broke I have become surprisingly well-acclimated to running in silence. I find myself relaxing into my run in a way I haven’t done in years, since the days when the only “portable music player” was this.

But then it rained, and rained, and rained, and I was forced onto the treadmill to keep up my mileage. Treadmills are boring, and I needed music. I called up the Apple Store to find out what it would take to replace the battery on my Mini.

Bottom line: $56 and two trips to the nearest Genius Bar, 17 miles away. One trip would be to get the Genius to agree that the problem was the battery. Then they would send my Mini back and get me a reconditioned Mini, which I would pick up on my second trip.

Cost of a new Shuffle: $79.

Hmm. I hate hate hate junking pricey and almost-perfectly-good computer equipment. But I also hate driving to the mall. Factor in the price of gas and the price of my time, which I bill by the hour…

My new Shuffle is a very pretty green. Also, it is tiny! I had no idea they had evolved from stick-of-gum to postage-stamp size, but this thing is so thin and small I can clip it to my shirt collar. In fact, when I took it out for its maiden run I was worried that it was so light I wouldn’t notice if it fell off. I had to remind myself that if the music suddenly went quiet, that would be a clue to stop and check the ground.

It stayed put for five miles, and I did not miss the tourniquet armband that kept the Mini in place, not one bit. Also, since the Shuffle was so close to my face, I did not have earphone wires dangling all over and getting jerked out of the player by the motion of my arms.

It holds 240 songs, which is 44 more peppy suitable-for-running songs than I have in my current collection. Fully loaded, that’s twelve-odd hours of music. I’m training for a ten-mile run in July, which means that I should have enough music to get me through the race, plus a few hours’ worth to keep me calm during my wait in the emergency room afterwards.

I think we are going to be very happy together.

This weekend, I attended my fourth four-year-old birthday party in as many weeks. I guess it only makes sense that the children in Aitch’s preschool class and playgroup, who are grouped by age, would have their birthdays clustered together. And given the monsoon weather we’ve enjoying, I haven’t really minded the weekly opportunity to feed and wear out the kids at a venue that I don’t have to clean up.

Unfortunately, Aitch is one of the younger kids in his class. By the time his birthday rolls around in August, not only will all of the good party venues have been used, multiple times, but parental fatigue will have set in. This leaves me limited options. The first is to come up with something even more fun and exciting for the kids (and the parents) to do. Pony rides! Pool party! Rock climbing! I am reluctant to do this, and not only because I’m cheap. I think the other parents are only going to resent such one-upmanship (I know I would). Worse, it seems like the beginning of a downward slide that will culminate in an eighth-grade graduation at the local yacht club to which the kids are chauffeured in stretch Hummers and at which they are entertained by a hip-hop artist famous enough to have shot someone and gotten away with it. My (acquired) Yankee sensibilities recoil in horror.

I could go the other way. My friend told me that her sister has a theory that birthday parties should be home-made affairs. The simplicity appeals to me, but do I really want a whole preschool class of four-year-olds running around my house? My house that has no backyard? We’ve done that, of course, for both Aitch’s and Minor’s Tol parties. But having expended a lot of effort there, I really wasn’t planning on having a big party for either of them for another couple of years.

I could limit the party to just family, or family and a few friends. Another guideline I’ve heard is one friend for each year of the kid’s life. That seems reasonable to me. Husband thinks that Aitch will be disappointed if he can’t have all his friends, like all the other kids. I say that a little disappointment will strengthen his character. Of course, four preschool friends will be accompanied by up to eight parents and four younger siblings, so if I’m having it at home I still have to feed a passel of folks.

What are the preschool party customs in your neck of the woods?

I am self-employed, and I typically receive checks from clients once a month. Because of this relative infrequency, and because I pay my taxes quarterly, rather than having them deducted from each paycheck, my checks are usually much larger than they would be if I were a regular salaried employee.

Because of the way my business is set up, I have to deposit each check personally in the bank. I normally do all possible routine tasks on-line, but I have come to enjoy the little ritual of walking down to the bank with each check.

Today there was a new teller, an older man. As he processed my deposit, he said, “That sure is a lot of money. I hope you have plans to do something with it, because I hate to think of it sitting around doing nothing.”

I felt uncomfortable having this stranger commenting on the size of my paycheck, while implying that I was not financially savvy enough to handle my money properly. I recognized this as a prelude to a sales pitch, but it still made me defensive. So I smiled and made some remark about paying the bills. Then I felt idiotic, because of course I plan what I do with my money very carefully, but I sounded like the kind of person who gets paid on Friday and is broke and hungover by Saturday.

Five minutes later, going over the conversation in my head, I was kicking myself. There was no need for me to respond to such an impertinent question at all. What was I defensive about? Why did I feel I owed him an explanation? And why do I feel the need to smile and be so damned ingratiating all the time? It’s not the first time something like this has happened, either. I’ve noticed this before: Someone makes a rude remark, and it’s as though I feel so embarrassed for him that I try to smile and joke around to make him feel better. As Goffman puts it, I felt like his remark threatened his face, and I tried to cover with politeness as a face-saving strategy.

I believe women are more likely to go around trying to save face for others than men are. In social situations, this can be a good thing. For example, in the two conversations I recounted in my last post, it was perfectly appropriate for me to try to smooth things over, to make both women feel less awkward about not recognizing me as Aitch’s mother. Face-saving strategies lubricate the motions of social intercourse, as it were. But professionally, this kind of behavior makes us look weak.

I am really going to try to work on this. There’s no need to be rude in a professional situation, but there are ways to respond to impertinence that are not exactly impolite but don’t work too hard to preserve the other person’s face. Goffman calls these “bald on record” strategies.

For example, the next time the teller says, “That sure is a lot of money. I hope you have plans to do something with it,” I could respond as follows:

Why is that so hard?

Two incidents from the weekend:

1. Aitch and I are at the playground, while Minor is with his dad. Aitch makes friends with a little boy about his age. They run around the playground for awhile, then the boy’s mother brings out the snacks. I am standing across the playground from her and I can see her start to offer a cracker to Aitch, think better of it, then begin looking around for his mother to ask permission first. I start to walk over to her, trying to catch her eye and silently thanking her for being aware of a potential allergy situation. But she isn’t looking at me; she’s trying to catch the eye of an Asian woman sitting on the bench. “Is it okay? Ma’am? Is he yours?” I run up and plant myself in front of her. “He’s mine,” I say, and give her the OK for the snack.

2. Aitch and I are at the coffee shop; Minor and dad are, again, at home. We’re standing in a long line and the seating area is also very crowded. Aitch is bouncing back and forth but suddenly clutches me. “It’s okay to talk to me,” a woman is saying. “Your mommy’s right there.” I give a kind of blank look while I try to figure out what she’s talking about. “That’s your mommy, right?” she asks. “Or your babysitter. Are you the babysitter?” “I’m his mother,” I answer.

To paraphrase something I read in a blog comment, neither of these assumptions was an unreasonable one to make, but they were slightly uncomfortable for me to hear. Both incidents made me a little sad. I want to be everything for my boys, including a person who is publicly identifiable as their mother.

Then again, the rather remarkable thing is that I am that person for 99% of the public that we encounter. Most of the time, people accept that I am their mother without question. Adoptions are so common here that, upon meeting a mixed-race family, most of the people can automatically do the math, or at least refrain from questioning the family about the different possibilities.

So I suppose I should be happy that these kinds of assumptions are the exception, and not the rule. And it’s entirely possible that the woman who asked if I was Aitch’s babysitter was misled by my extremely youthful looks.

My friend J. alerted me to this. Apparently there are people out there who think they can visit other people’s dreams and even battle demons that threaten them while they sleep. This is not part of a fantasy game; these people really believe they can do this.

I’m thinking of becoming a dream walker. I wouldn’t fight demons, but I would berate inefficient customer service representatives in your dreams.

You’re welcome.

May is Peace Month in Port City. On May 20, the city is sponsoring a “violent toy” turn-in on the Mall. (I assume this means toys with the capacity to be used in violent play, not toys that are violent of their own free will.) Volunteers will make a peace sculpture out of the relinquished toys.

Wait. Back up. Let’s get this straight. So you’ve originally bestowed a few presents on your children with an open heart, but now that it’s Peace Month you have second thoughts about their appropriateness, so you’re supposed to march the kids on down to the town square and force them publicly to hand over the goods. Give back their toys. Atone for your bad judgment.

I think I’ll pass. Peace begins at home.

I made an appointment to get my eyebrows waxed yesterday. As I was leaving the house, Husband was trying to get dinner ready for the kids and looking very exasperated. Aitch started whining that he wanted to come with Mommy, and I thought, “An eyebrow wax takes five minutes. Why not take him along? How much damage could he do?” But then I got to the salon and realized I was going to have to lie on my back with my eyes closed, unable to monitor him as he roamed freely among wires and equipment and, uh, a crock pot with hot wax.

I begged him to be good and, mostly, he was. He asked a lot of questions: “Why you doing that? Why you have a chopstick? [the paddle to spread the wax] Why you have too much hair, Mommy? Can I see it?” Nothing brings home the stupidity of adhering to patriarchal standards of beauty like having to explain them to your three-year-old.

When Aitch started to get restless, I had the brainwave of asking him to come to my side and hold my hand. Then I had an uncomfortable flash forward: This is what it will be like when I’m dying and he’s holding my hand at my hospital bedside. How cheery.

Later, he said, “Thank you for taking me to get your eyebrows cut,” and then, “When I get big, I can go too!” I tried hard to think of a way to respond to that without resorting to the knee-jerk, “Only girls do that.” I mean, the kid has some serious eyebrows. He’s probably going to need to have them waxed before he’s sixteen just so he can see well enough to pass his driving test.