I've taken Nick to the Children's Museum three times in his life. It is okay. A little underwhelming to be honest, considering they recently did a multimillion dollar overhaul to the place and it cost $10 per ticket, which considering what they have to offer is about double what it should be. But Nick absolutely loves it there. Almost anything else we do can't hold his attention for more than an hour, but turn him loose in the museum and he's good for four hours or more. As far as I'm concerned, it's money well spent. After all, the museum isn't designed for me. Who cares if I like it?
I'm watching Nick play on one of the play structures sitting beside some wealthy suburban mom who looks and is dressing like she belongs at a wine and cheese thing rather than an outing with her kid. I've got no eye for fashion but I'm positive her designer jeans and shirt cost more than my entire wardrobe. She sniffs, yes, she actually sniffs and turns to me, looking me up and down in my thrift store jeans, Newcastle United jersey and Jesse Eisenberg Social Network hoodie and says "It's awfully cold in here, don't you think?"
I'm never cold. In fact, the only time I turn the heat on in my apartment is when the boys are here. So maybe I'm the wrong guy to ask. I look around. It's an old brick building, so yeah, I can see it being cold. "Yeah, I guess so... that's why I got a sweater on."
"Oh I don't have a sweater. You can't wear a sweater with this." She waves a dismissive hand at her outfit. Before I catch myself I blurt out "Why not?" I was legitimately puzzled.
She put on a phony, condescending smile and decided to enlighten me that this wasn't the sort of outfit you wore a sweater with.
Oh I see I thought to myself, well then, just freeze lady. What I actually say is "well, I guess they figured the kids are running around all day and would be warm, so they keep the heat down."
"Can't they think about the parents? You know, the ones who are actually buying the tickets?" Not a trace of humour or irony. I am literally speechless.
I thought she was going to keep talking, but her little boy came running up to her dragging her by the arm to go see the inside of the train again. Again, without a trace of joy or amused irony she drones at her boy, stone-jawed:
"Oh God Jeffery, not the train again... anything but the train again."
Thank God I don't have to talk to her again... thanks a lot kid. I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual. As her kid is leading her away, I glance down at her feet.
She's wearing heels. She's actually wearing heels. Oy.
Not ten seconds later, another little boy and her mom show up. This one I'm going to dub Wal-Mart mom, which I feel bad about because that sounds like a trite bit of classism, but I really don't know what else to say. She's large and wearing clothes that are way too small for her, with a belly shirt that's cut ridiculously low. And she insisted on playing in the play structure with her child. Her boobs fell out of her shirt twice as she was crawling through one of the tubes. You'd think after the first time, she'd clue in to the notion that maybe she's dressed a little too inappropriately for that kind of play, but no, she goes right on, tugging and adjusting her clothes and stuffing her tits back into her shirt nonchalantly like it happens all the time. She is constantly yelling at her boy. I mean constantly. I'm sure the soundtrack to this kid's life is nothing but his mother yelling at him and constantly making threats to cut off whatever little fun he's having if he doesn't start behaving, except he looks like he's behaving okay to me.
But I try not to judge. I remember at the lowest point in my old marriage, I was under a lot of stress and pressure that I took out on Nick, even though he was doing nothing wrong. I felt bad for the little guy and maybe the mom has way too much on her plate.
Nick got off the play structure and tore around the museum, doing each activity for about 5 minutes in fear that he may not get to do them all in 4 hours, and I huffed and puffed to keep up. There's a little section where kids can play with 8' tall cranes and place building blocks around a mock city. There Wal-Mart mom and another mom were having a very loud argument about the behaviour of their respective kids. Nick asked me why they were fighting, to which I could only explain to him that some people don't know how to resolve disputes any other way.
At the craft table, Nick is decorating a paper cup with bits of foam, when one of the dads is having the following conversation on his phone, and I'm paraphrasing only slightly:
"This place is a fucking joke... $10 million dollars went up some guy's fucking nose... what a waste of fucking money this place is..."
This time I'm actually compelled to say something:
"Watch your language, there's kids here. Take it outside if you're going to yell like that."
He looked up only briefly, twisted his head away from me and wandered off into a hallway. One or two moms thanked me for standing up to him. I go back to Nick and his paper cup, when I make eye contact with one of the moms. I do a double take and see she's still looking at me. Wow, she is CUTE! I make eye contact with her a few more times until she gives me an unspoken look that says, I'm flattered that you think I'm cute, and heck, I think you're kind of cute too, but I'm taken and/or not interest, so let's go our separate ways, ok?
With a hint of a smile, of course. Dang. I'm supposed to be spending my day with Nick, not cadging the museum looking for dates anyway.
Nick goes back to the play structure and starts playing with a little red-haired Irish princess of a girl. I'm so glad Nick makes friends so naturally and easy. In most ways, we are identical but I was painfully shy as long as I can remember and Nick can integrate himself into just about any situation. In the play structure with the little girl is the girl's hippie earth parents in identical wool sweaters and caps, literally hovering over their girl and following her everywhere she goes.
I have to admit I used to be a hoverer until I forced myself to stop. Now I watch Nick from a distance, keeping an eye on him in case he gets too far out of line and needs some guidance, but allowing him some breathing space to do his thing. Most parents around me now are hoverers. Some still expect the staff to look after their kids... after all, what is that $10 for anyway? I give Nick some freedom, but he knows I'm still there. Actually, he's the one who wants me close. If that were me at his age, I would be breaking my arm to get away, if that's what it took.
We wander around some more and the earth hippie parents are still joined at their kid's hip. I keep bumping into the CUTE! mom and she gives me a cursory glance before making a point of not looking in my direction. Wal-Mart mom is managing to simultaneously argue with another parent and yell at her child and I quietly wonder in that perfect storm of WTF what other parents think of me. Am I one of the majority who are okay, or am I the one where the other parents look at each other and roll their eyes. And why do I care? It's funny, because I do care. I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't.
Parenting is one of the biggest, fiercest competitions around and as much as people say they're aren't in that mindset, at least a part of them is. You want to be a good parent in the eyes of other parents. You need to be a good parent in the eyes of other parents. This was an eye-opener for me, because my parents were the least competitive parents I've probably ever come across. My parents are throwbacks from a bygone era to be sure, so that's probably got a lot to do with it. My parents never took me anywhere growing up. They never once took me to the museum, or the carnival when it came to town, or the circus or to a sporting event. Dad took me to two movies until I was old enough to go on my own, and that was because he was in the doghouse big time with mom. We never, ever went on a family vacation until mom took me to England when I was 12 and we've never been on one since. And the concept of parenting based on the judgments of others would have been alien to them.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not by any means complaining about that. For all the experiences I missed out doing what many other families did, I more than made up for being an 8 year old with a bike and whole unstructured days to explore. Given a choice between that and having my life micromanaged by some anal striving parent, give me free roam any day. But it would have been nice to have my parents involved on some level. My mom rarely went out in public because she suffered from panic attacks, and my dad just didn't swing that way. But I more or less turned out fine. They were generally good folks with a few issues that got the better of them. This clashes so fundamentally with my ex's parents, who have to be intimately involved in every aspect of their child's and grandchildren's lives, it borders on the suffocating.
Like a lot of things that have hung me up in the past though, I've learned to be comfortable with my parenting, and I think I'm a good dad to my boys. Not by any means perfect, but good. And they'll go through their phases where they hate dad because he left home, but ultimately they will understand. And I'm fine with that.
-PW
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