Older, Wiser

I got my feelings hurt by a six-year-old the other day.

It happened at the park.

I was there with my youngest, watching him contort his gangly limbs through a too-small tunnel. This place was made for smaller children, but that is not something my son would ever care about. He just turned thirteen, but he’d never regard the sandbox, play structure and spider-web-climby thing as beneath him.

Why would he give up this kind of fun just because he’s turned a certain age?? Just because that’s what other kids his age usually do? At thirteen, my son is literally in his prime. And those other kids? They can be suckers on their own time. They don’t know what they’re missing.

My son always brings a bag of small race cars to the park. He hauls them to the top of the slide, lines them all up, blocking everyone else from using the slide as an actual slide, and narrates the mounting race drama like a color commentator in a booth. One of the racers always gets off to an early lead; one of them always…dun, dun, duuunnn: cheats!

Some days my son brings his cars magnanimously, not just sharing, but telling kids they can take them home with them if they want; other days he doesn’t like when a kid gets within social distance of the cars.

And while it is hardly conventional park etiquette, I consider this his prerogative.

I know a lot of people think young kids are supposed to share all the time, like miniature socialists who should be willing, if not overjoyed, to put all their toys in a communal pot to be used freely by all. But after a long career of cajoling proprietary kids to give stuff up and pass it around, I’m just no longer one of those people.

Believe me, I did all the bargaining required of early parenthood, sweaty, negotiating with irrational dictators over the release of a hostage, usually a 99 cent Hot Wheels car. But I can no longer say if this particular brand of stress was worth it.

My oldest did not like sharing very much when she was younger. I’ve teased her about it for years because I too was a kinda stingy oldest — when you’re born to everything being yours, and then have to switch to an ours mentality as siblings come along, well, it kinda blows.

Still, despite these beginnings, my oldest’s grown into one of the most generous of spirit people I know (who, yes, still gets tweaked when her sister turns up in a picture wearing her jacket, the one she didn’t like enough to bring to college).

Meanwhile, my younger daughter would give you anything. Seriously, what do you want?

My older son would do the same, provided he knew where that any one thing was at the time.

My youngest would feed you a bite from his mouth like a mother bird or Alicia Silverstone one minute, and bite you for taking one of his french fries the next.

I’m just not sure how much of this I personally affected. Truly, if parenthood came with any one warning, it would be this: results may vary.

Because for all of the blood, sweat and tears — all incredibly high-incidence fluids of parenthood — a lot of parenthood is just…spinning. Blowing at a pinwheel to keep the colors swirling. But guess what? Stop all that huffing and puffing, hold the thing up in the wind, and it still goes around. Nature has a way of kicking in.

This is my hard-earned, older-parent perspective. It’s either very lazy or incredibly insightful — not sure which, not even sure time will tell.

But it’s like I’ve skipped ahead, like in some ways, I’m more my youngest’s grandparent than parent, willing to chalk a little naughtiness up to him being a “rascal”, buying that ice cream cone that will ruin his dinner, taking a hard pass on disciplining for every little transgression because, like every older, wiser person knows, this pursuit is hard, tiring and debatably worth it.

So I’m okay with things getting a little sticky on the playground. I’m okay with a little friction over toys. I’m okay watching bemusedly as my son brokers his own deals, and worst case, if things take a real turn, taking the easy way out and making him pack up his cars so we can leave.

Because at my age, I know this: none of this is worth a blood pressure spike. Especially when the park is a land of irrationals anyhow.

In fact, I’ve long thought the park to be a lot like a bar at late night.

All of the overheard dialogue can have a very unhinged, right-before-last-call feel.

There’s a lot of pointing and memories are short:

“What is her name again?”

“I don’t know. What is your name again?”

Questions are repetitive, conversations disjointed:

“Are you leaving?”

“This is my favorite racer!”

“ — But are you leaving soon?”

“He is the fastest of all time!”

“— But are you leaving now?”

“He is a champion!”

“—I think you are leaving.”

There’s a fair amount of improvising and imaginary thinking:

“Ok, pretend we are at a restaurant!”

“Yes! We are at a restaurant having sushi!”

“Yes! That’s why we don’t have utensils!”

And age, life’s greatest screener, is always a factor:

“How old are you?”

“Four.”

“Oh. Well, we are both five, so…”

Meanwhile, as an adult of record on premises, kids report to me like I’m a bouncer, mistaking me for an interventionist.

“Your son really hurt my feelings by racing that car.”

“Because he won’t share?”

“No, the way he raced it.”

I can’t help you, kid.

You see, I’m a good time bouncer. I know your ID is fake — I’m gonna let you in anyway. And unless you start breaking bottles over people’s heads, I’m gonna let you stay.

I’m all about trying to keep the vibe. Because, like a bar, even though the park is always the same place, often with the same mix of players, the vibe can vary wildly from one outing to the next.

There are the good days — when the sun’s out, jackets left in the car, everyone happy, everyone hitting it off.

There are the dud days — when it’s windy and there’s only a handful of kids watched over by less-than-friendly adults who don’t want their small children playing with a tall, too-happy, often-singing teenager.

And there are the days that start good, and then, with just a few wrong words, go bad.

Like the day I got my feelings hurt.

A six-year-old was following my son into a tunnel. He turned to me before ducking his head to enter and asked, “Are you his mom?”

“I am. Do you know him?”

“Yeah, I know him…” he answered, in a way that made it clear this was not his reason for asking. His reason for asking was this, “You look older than the last time I saw you.”

I’m not one to walk away from a triggering comment, even if it’s been made by a six-year-old.

I only look old. I’m actually super immature!

So I had to engage.

“Oh, but I don’t think we’ve met before. Maybe you’re thinking of my son’s nanny. She brings him here a lot and she is younger.”

“No. No…“ He looked me up and down one more time, “I’m thinking of you…” And then, as he turned back to his climbing business, “Wow. So old.” Shaking his down-turned head, like my aging simultaneously disappointed and stunned him.

I told my son to pack up his cars, that it was time to leave because today kids were over-sharing at the park, a confusing corollary to having to leave the park for under-sharing.

I told anyone who would or would not listen about this park encounter, either a purging or some kind of self-administered exposure therapy.

One dear friend suggested maybe the kid was saying old like it was a cool thing, because kids always want to be older. Perhaps it was aspirational? She is so dear.

When I told my husband about my tough day at the park, he kind of winced, like a grimace-y look he gets when I tell him there’s a spider on the ceiling of our bedroom, a combination of I’m a little scared and am I going to have to deal with this?

My younger daughter laughed a little too hard and then assured me she wasn’t laughing because it was true which confirmed she was laughing because it was true. I texted my older daughter, who also HAHAHAHAHAed and wanted to know if I’d told my older son yet because he “was going to love this.”

My older son did seem to love it. But he thought I was overreacting to suggest the kid should just be put in jail now, preemptively, because if he could do this at six, what would he be capable of as an adult?

“But he is only SIX.”

“I actually think he is closer to seven…”

“Okay. But, Mom, he is probably used to seeing 30-year-old moms at the park.”

In case it’s not obvious, this was meant to be consoling.

And it is true that I’m now older than most of the adults at the park. Most of the nannies are younger, all of the parents are younger, and soon the grandparents will be contemporaries.

My son is my youngest child and I had him right before I turned 40. He just turned 13. This simple math makes me a park dinosaur.

But I’m not sure I’ll ever go extinct. I might always roam prehistorically around places like this because I think my son and I will always go to parks together.

I’d guess my son will never tire of this kind of fun, this bright palette for his imagination. I will one day trail him on hopscotch with my walker. I will turn my hearing aid up so I can hear the pretend call he places to me from across the park, using the giant flower amplifier. People will see me wandering near the swings and, not knowing I’m there with my child, mistakenly call in a silver alert.

The truth is, little Six-Year-Old, despite appearances, I’m more suspended in time than anyone else here. For most people this park-going is a phase, a discreet group of years that starts and ends. Not for me. Someday, when you’re in high school, possibly being a little too unfiltered with classmates, I’ll still be here.

And I’ve already been sitting on the rim of this sand box for nearly two decades. My older kids were patron saints of this park when your parents were in high school.

The ground under these structures wasn’t always so soft and forgiving, did you know that? You know how when you fall on this blue surface you kind of bounce?? Well, when my older kids fell, they scraped on actual concrete. And that tree over there? That one whose lower limbs have been sawed off so nobody can get a leg up to climb it? My older kids climbed those lost branches right up to the top. Every day. And waved down at me from high above.

I thought they’d fall every time. They never did.

Two of them drive cars now, another will soon; one lives 3,000 miles away now, another will soon.

I used to watch every little thing they did. It was often as thrilling as creating a brilliant masterpiece with acrylics, and sometimes as boring as watching paint on a canvas dry. The park, the spotting, the cajoling — it was all my chore and responsibility, and now it’s no longer my privilege.

Now, my privilege, my grace, is that I am still here. Looking older, I know. You don’t have to tell me. But I’m here, watching a kid I once worried might not get older, sing and play, be generous and stingy, navigating this crazy little world of the park, a dry running of skills for the bigger, crazier world beyond the park.

I’m not disappointed by any of it.

This is what’s stunning.

Still though, as noted, you did hurt my feelings.

And your mom is probably young enough to care that you did.

Timelessly yours,

Jen.