Dan's Papers - May 8, 2009

Being a parent - specifically a mother (in honor of Mother's Day) - has its privileges as well as its responsibilities. One of those privileges is the god-given right, above all other mortals, to tell your child what to do.

That right rarely includes telling someone else's child what to do, something I learned the hard way. When our son was a toddler, I'd think nothing of taking on the tough nannies and A-personality moms in the Bleeker Street playground if another child so much as gave Hudson a dirty look. If there was a scuffle between two little hulks over who gets the shovel, I wouldn't hesitate to physically remove the other child if things got dicey. Once, at a children's museum in New Jersey, I went ballistic on a 6-year old who pushed our then 3-year old son out of the way on an exhibit. The other mom then went ballistic on me.

Needless to say I quickly learned what is and is not proper mom etiquette. Very simply, each mom or caretaker quickly intervenes and removes her own charge: You deal with your kid; I'll deal with mine.

Being a quick study, I never more reprimanded another's child, unless the parent was no where to be found, or was a dead-beat sitting on the sidelines reading The Times, and the situation was becoming dangerous.

As our son has gotten older and more able to control his impulses, I've noticed that most moms were becoming better behaved, too. So now that I'm past the learning curve, I find it shocking when other parents overstep the boundaries.

A few weeks ago I was in the city for the day with our son. We went to a favorite spot: the Alice in Wonderland statue at Sailboat Lake. My partner grew up in the city, climbing on that enormous sculpture just as every other child has done for generations. Spots on the life-size brass tableau have been shined to a golden finish by the hands of grasping children over the years: Alice's index finger, the mouse's ear and the rim of the Mad Hatter's hat are among the many key climbing aids that a glisten in the sun and beg, "Grab me!"

In any case, that morning my son was on the statue with a large group of kids, all trying to get to the top. That busload left, leaving just him and two other children climbing about. Some tourists began to amass with cameras. I sat on the bench and watched the scene.

A man with a camera yelled angrily at a kid on the statue. I ignored it. Not my business. Then he yelled again, with more rage, "You! I said get down from there!"

I looked up, and my son was starting to scramble down.

Mrs. Ballistic, after years of absence, made an appearance.

"Are you talking to my son?" I yelled from the bench.

"He's disrespecting the statue!" he thundered back.

"Don't tell him what to do," I answered.

By then Hudson was standing in front of me with a scared look on his face, his lip trembling a little.

"Mumma?" he said, confused.

"Ignore him honey," I said, within the oaf's earshot. "You're not doing anything wrong. Go back and play."

"Is he taking my picture? Is he the police?"

"He's nobody," I said loudly. "Just play, it's okay."

Then the oaf roared out. "Some people are just ignorant. I have more respect for the statue than your mother," he said, starting to walk around it toward me.

"Respect for the statue?" I said to him. "Obviously you aren't from here. I've lived in this town for 25 years. Kids have been climbing that for generations. It's a tradition."

"Yeah, and you'll probably sue the city when he cracks his head open," he said, walking by on his way elsewhere.

"There's a saying," I said. "When in Rome ..." (I think the reference was beyond his ken.)

Hudson said, "Mumma, can I ask him something?" Of course I said no, but Mr. Personality sat down on the edge of the sculpture and said. "Yeah, come on kid, ask me whatever you want."

Hudson started toward him, I leaped over and guided him away by the shoulders, "Hudson, we are not interested in anything he has to say. We don't talk to strangers."

The man's wife (poor thing) said to him, nervously, "Come on, let's go." I felt badly for her.

Hudson said, "I just wanted to ask him something."

"I wanted to ask him who he was."

He was someone who never learned the rules of the playground, or the wrath of a mother scorned: an emotional response that is a god given right on Mother's, and every, day.