Dear fellow mother at the school playground,
(Photo by Maria Carey)
I know it’s the second day of school. Gone is the adrenaline shot and the busy feel of the first day, where we’re all looking out for one another and nervously making friends and are on our best behavior. The second day means we can let our guard down and relax a little and be ourselves again.
But maybe you should try looking up from your smartphone’s screen every once in a while.
Don’t be upset: I have a smartphone too, and I admit that, while watching the children at the playground, I was checking to see what kind of crazy activity was going on in the Internets. I even checked friends’ Facebook statuses (one of my friends was grilling something delicious; the other was documenting some work in her house).
We’re not so different, you and I.
Except for the fact that I noticed when several things happened, just by the fact that I was not one hundred feet away from the playground, with my back turned away and my eyes trained intently on a tiny screen. I was actually chasing my children around, in between status update checks. I was talking to other parents and enjoying the gone-too-soon effervescence of when things are still new, I suppose. So I was able to see these few things I mentioned earlier: like how your son was pushing and punching and screaming at everyone in the playground. Or how he, after bullying one of his friends a little too much, was roughly pushed to the ground. Or how we, the other parents, were wondering who was minding him and watched him with increased discomfort as he pretended to be far more injured than he was and he clutched his belly in mock agony and called for you.
Yes, it’s true: you eventually showed up and looked around at those of us who had been there for a bit, menacing– even if you didn’t ask any of us what had happened. And then you helped him get up and checked up on him, which was a nice thing to do. But then the BlackBerry’s siren song called you back and that was that.
Which is why, when your son needed to go to the bathroom, he didn’t really run to you to ask you to take him inside. He simply unzipped his pants and started to pee right there, off the playground, where other children run around and sit on a regular basis.
I realize I may be filled with the hubris of a parent new to school, and that in a few scant months, you may be telegraphing with your eyes something that says, “See? I’m burned out and now you are, too. Stop criticizing.” But I hope that when that day comes, I will have enough presence of mind to at least put the phone down for a little while the first time my children engage in potentially embarrassing behavior.
Just a thought.
