Addie was invited to a birthday party that took place yesterday at a local gymnasium. I was elected to take her, as Nolie is still recovering from her myriad viruses and has hamburger buns (literally--her ass looks like chopped meat) as a result of the acid-like antibiotics she's required to take.
I'm always nervous about these preschooler birthdays, primarily because it requires me to talk to people I don't know, and my painful shyness emerges, coupled with frustration because I really am not shy but am outspoken and boisterous among people I know and like. And I get all angsty because invariably there will be a parent there who says something that triggers my insecurities or fears or anger. So there's this whole psychological drama taking place inside my head while a tribe full of preschoolers boings around on trampolines and cushy blue mats.
I'm starting to get to know some of the parents of the kids at Addie's school, so the preschooler birthday experience is getting a little less painful. But I met a mom yesterday I hadn't seen before, and I liked her immediately because she was talkative and outgoing and interesting. Personality-wise, she's the kind of person I could see having coffee with. I could feel myself starting to relax around her.
But then I fell into the mommy judgment trap. As we talked, I learned that she's a vp of marketing for a large company, and she and her husband travel a lot. They have a live-in au pair. They have three kids (two twins Addie's age and an older girl) and each of their kids is involved in at least a dozen activities--dance, art, summer camp, etc., etc. As we paused our conversation to watch our kids running around the gym (her daughter active and agile, brave and quick; my sweet little pixie Addie tentative and careful, moving like a ragdoll dancer in her own private constellation of invisible obstacles) I felt big judgments. How could you work so much and travel all the time and have someone else raise your kids and in the time you do have with them you ship them off to lessons every five seconds? Didn't you hear that story on NPR about how kids need unstructured "imagination" time so that they develop self-talk? Don't you miss them, for God's sake?
Isn't that interesting? I mean, apart from the whole au pair thing, and apart from the thousands of lessons and activities, I'm not so different from that mom, right? I'm professional and ambitious, and I love, love, love traveling without my children, and I have to struggle daily to be present with them when I am home and not just plop them down in front of the tv or coloring book or whatever so that I can get
five
minutes'
peace.
Interesting how the judgments and the fears get all bound up like that. Interesting how those reactions typically have more to do with me than with the actual lived experiences of someone else. Interesting how I was tempted to shut down communication, contact, conflict with this other person because of what I immediately projected on to her.
I've just come back from a faculty seminar with an activist and intellectual who works with and is part of indigenous communities in Mexico. He talked about how, in a particular native language there, there is no concept of "I," only "we;" the self only exists in relationship to others or that which is around us. Our language, our way of life, everything suggests to us that we are individual, separate from the world around us. This is a terrible and fearful way of being in the world, and we try to address our terror through judgment and busy-ness and buying things. The things that fill us--seeing our connections to one another, making contact with one another, through dialog or conflict or most importantly listening--are the hardest to do.
Especially at preschooler birthday parties.
I'm always nervous about these preschooler birthdays, primarily because it requires me to talk to people I don't know, and my painful shyness emerges, coupled with frustration because I really am not shy but am outspoken and boisterous among people I know and like. And I get all angsty because invariably there will be a parent there who says something that triggers my insecurities or fears or anger. So there's this whole psychological drama taking place inside my head while a tribe full of preschoolers boings around on trampolines and cushy blue mats.
I'm starting to get to know some of the parents of the kids at Addie's school, so the preschooler birthday experience is getting a little less painful. But I met a mom yesterday I hadn't seen before, and I liked her immediately because she was talkative and outgoing and interesting. Personality-wise, she's the kind of person I could see having coffee with. I could feel myself starting to relax around her.
But then I fell into the mommy judgment trap. As we talked, I learned that she's a vp of marketing for a large company, and she and her husband travel a lot. They have a live-in au pair. They have three kids (two twins Addie's age and an older girl) and each of their kids is involved in at least a dozen activities--dance, art, summer camp, etc., etc. As we paused our conversation to watch our kids running around the gym (her daughter active and agile, brave and quick; my sweet little pixie Addie tentative and careful, moving like a ragdoll dancer in her own private constellation of invisible obstacles) I felt big judgments. How could you work so much and travel all the time and have someone else raise your kids and in the time you do have with them you ship them off to lessons every five seconds? Didn't you hear that story on NPR about how kids need unstructured "imagination" time so that they develop self-talk? Don't you miss them, for God's sake?
Isn't that interesting? I mean, apart from the whole au pair thing, and apart from the thousands of lessons and activities, I'm not so different from that mom, right? I'm professional and ambitious, and I love, love, love traveling without my children, and I have to struggle daily to be present with them when I am home and not just plop them down in front of the tv or coloring book or whatever so that I can get
five
minutes'
peace.
Interesting how the judgments and the fears get all bound up like that. Interesting how those reactions typically have more to do with me than with the actual lived experiences of someone else. Interesting how I was tempted to shut down communication, contact, conflict with this other person because of what I immediately projected on to her.
I've just come back from a faculty seminar with an activist and intellectual who works with and is part of indigenous communities in Mexico. He talked about how, in a particular native language there, there is no concept of "I," only "we;" the self only exists in relationship to others or that which is around us. Our language, our way of life, everything suggests to us that we are individual, separate from the world around us. This is a terrible and fearful way of being in the world, and we try to address our terror through judgment and busy-ness and buying things. The things that fill us--seeing our connections to one another, making contact with one another, through dialog or conflict or most importantly listening--are the hardest to do.
Especially at preschooler birthday parties.
this is a very very insightful entry, JJ. I was particularly struck by this: "...there is no concept of "I," only "we;" the self only exists in relationship to others or that which is around us. Our language, our way of life, everything suggests to us that we are individual, separate from the world around us. This is a terrible and fearful way of being in the world, and we try to address our terror through judgment and busy-ness and buying things. The things that fill us--seeing our connections to one another, making contact with one another, through dialog or conflict or most importantly listening--are the hardest to do."
ReplyDeletethis is SO right on, and speaks to one of my daily challenges lately--recognizing the essential value in all of us, seeing how community is sparked by small acts of compassion, and tryingm really trying, to rein in the MUST HAVE THIS TO BE WHOLE factor that daily pounds my shores.
I am so glad you're in my life.
M