ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?

A message from a Park Slope Parent:

i was at the 3rd street playground with my two sons, both of whom are nursing. my older son, B****, who is 2yo, fell off of the playground equipment, hitting his head on the bars on the way down. of course he started crying, and i picked him up and took him over to a bench and was trying to comfort him. he was asking to nurse so i took the baby (c****, 4m) out of the mei tai, put him in b****'s stroller, and b**** started nursing.

we were the only ones on the bench, but there were a couple of nannies on a bench to the right, and a nanny on the bench to the left. not that i was even thinking about any of that at the moment, i was just nursing b****, enjoying the weather, and smiling at c****.

i then heard the nanny on the bench on the left say "oh that is just WRONG!" at first i didn't really focus in on it, it didn't occur to me that she was talking about me. but as she continued it became clear that she was... "that is just WRONG. on SO MANY LEVELS. that is DISGUSTING!"

i should make it clear that this woman had stood up off of her bench and was yelling this. it was obviously loud enough for me to hear, and for the nannies on the other side of me to hear. with no particular plan formed, just going in the heat of the moment i said "are you talking to me? are you talking to me? EXCUSE ME, ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?" no response. she just stood there, looking away from me, and started getting ready to leave the park. whether she was leaving anyway or doing it because of me, i do not know.

i was so angry. i am not someone who gets into fights or anything but i really wanted to get up and get in her face. of course, this was a pretty bad plan considering i had my kids there with me, b**** still nursing. i didn't want b**** to understand what was going on.

the nannies on the other bench were watching and clucking amongst themselves. loud nanny yelled over to one of the nannies on the other bench "how's your ice cream? taste good?" implying that she should be losing her appetite at the horror of me nursing my son. btw, shortly thereafter the ice-cream eating nanny threw her half-eaten popsicle into the bushes behind her.

b**** was feeling better and ready to play, and now c**** was getting kvetchy. so b**** ran off, and i picked up c**** and started to put him back in the mei tai and nurse him in the carrier. of course, this started the clucking up. i only heard snippets but, you know, it was just like "oh now look, now she's going to nurse him too." like i should be ashamed of the fact that i am trying to nurse my crying baby while carrying him so that i can look after my 2 year old.

later, another nanny came along and i could see that the nannies on the bench were telling her all about me, she was standing there staring at me. this whole thing really upset me, put me in a very foul mood which was luckily saved by the joy of c**** having his first ride in the playground swing :) but still, i am still upset, and i am angry that someone would treat me that way. funny looks and muttering amongst themselves was bad enough, but the first nanny who felt the need to yell about how disgusting it was... now THAT is just wrong.

i don't know exactly what the purpose of this post is... i know that i have been lucky that in my 26 months as a mother i have not had any bad experiences like this. but people, this is park slope! i thought i was safe here. argh. i originally wanted to post looking for the family for whom the loud nanny works, but in the moments before she left the park i did not think clearly enough to get a look at the kids or the stroller, and the nanny herself was pretty nondescript - black, chubby, shoulder length-ish straightened hair, i think wearing blue jeans (oh yeah, that description will find her in no time!). and i don't really know if the family would want to do something anyway. i mean *I* certainly wouldn't want anyone acting like that who is supposed to be a role model for my kids, but i know that childcare issues are complicated and i certainly would understand not wanting to disrupt one's family, yada yada. i just felt so angry and my instinct was to have some sort of "oh yeah, you think you can act that way with me?" thing...i guess i just feel the need to put this out there and share it with everyone.

e****, mom to b**** and c****

And my response:

Dear E****,

I most certainly believe it is your right to breast feed your children for as long as you want – whether they are two, four, eight or whatever. I also believe it is your right to nurse wherever you want and the hang ups of others are their own problem.

Furthermore, I can totally see why in this day, age and community you would be upset over a perceived attack on your personal mothering practices. Further furthermore, I think it is right and good for you to share your experience with PSP.

On the other hand, your message makes certain presumptions I feel should be addressed. You seem to be trying – albeit futilely – to get this person in trouble with an assumed employer for passive-aggressive behavior which – by your own account – you never actually confirmed was directed at you. You claim to be informing on her for the sake of the children, but the understandable anger of your tone shines through implying vindictiveness is your true motive.

When you talk about the employers of this assumed nanny "not wanting to disrupt one's family, yada yada…" you seem to be saying this is the only semi-acceptable reason why they wouldn't fire her once they heard your account – never mind her side of the story.

It sounds like you made your feelings clear at the park; why not just leave it at that?

While I respect your right to breastfeed and your right to yell at this other person, I also respect her right to express her own feelings. This is a free country and she being a nanny or being black or being chubby has really nothing to do with it. You make it plain, after all, through your sarcastic and bracketed remark that you realize your somewhat offensive description would do little to actually identify her.

Finally, I would ask you to ask yourself how much of this is about your need to share and how much of this is about "some sort of 'oh yeah, you [nanny] think you can act this way with me?' thing."

Sincerely,
Lorenzo

...Two Bits

Got a haircut last night at Slope Barber on Fifth Avenue. I love this place. You should go there even if you don’t live in Brooklyn. Even if you don’t live in New York, you should come visit us and get your haircut there.

But call first. Just don’t drop in and knock on the door. We may not answer. We may just stare at your from behind the peep hole. You may think you hear us giggling as you lug your bags back out into the street, but that’s just the television. We leave it on when we’re not home.

We get our hair cut by Kathy, because she seems like the only one who can use scissors. The guys can take care of you if you need a Gumby fade or “Brooklyn” carved into the back of your head. Well, the truth is while we were there a kid came in trying to get “Brooklyn” carved into the back of his head, but the veteran guy – a dreadlocked African American with a Rastafari patch on his smock – pretended like he didn’t know how. It was near closing time and a proper “Brooklyn” would take a while.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my haircut and I like my kid’s haircut, but the real reason I like going there is for the conversation. Last time we were there we got the lowdown on all the best tattoo artists in New York. There’s this dude who lives near Bay Ridge who use to take breaks in the middle of tat jobs to shoot heroine. Apparently he’s off the horse now and there was some debate as to whether the quality of his work has suffered for it.

Yesterday the debate focused mostly on corns and the best way to remove them. A longtime customer came in to show off his purchase from the pharmacy. It was a medicated corn removal product and Rastafari lamented his own corn. He’s had it since the Biltmore Ballroom, he said, which translated to the Gregorian calendar would be roughly sometime between 1987 and 1995. He went on about the ’gators and British Knights collecting dust in his closet, because the pain of wearing them is too unbearable.

Kathy suggested soaking the corn in hot water, letting the center “rise to the top,” then digging it out with a razor. From there the conversation spanned topics ranging from the deviltry of George Bush and Tony Blair to a lawsuit involving lead poisoning at the Brooklyn Arms in Fort Greene to the love child of Diana Ross and Michael Jackson (Evan Ross).

Seriously, that was the most entertaining haircut I ever got in my life. (4 stars)

Blood Spray

Yet more reprehensible damage was done to my child this weekend when I took him to go see Hot Fuzz. The movie features three or four super-graphic yet unquestionably comic murder scenes. I can’t recommend this film for most seven-year-olds, but mine seemed to enjoy it even though I kept trying cover his eyes with my hand.

Yeah, I worry about him. I really can’t justify taking him to see rated R movies. The truth is I really wanted to see it and he was willing and, hey, at least it wasn’t Shaun of the Dead or Vacancy. I know, not a very strong argument at all.

I will say that these days parents seem overly concerned with protecting their children. Things were different when I was a kid. We played for hours on end unsupervised by adult eyes. We got beat up and knocked down. We were exposed to storm drain pornography and Faces of Death and copious amounts of Howard Stern and Cheech and Chong.

And while my parents were often unable or unwilling to guard my virgin senses from the graphic tumult of media overload, they did lie to and hide things from me a lot. I don’t want to do that.

I’ve also taken him to see Meet the Robinsons, The Last Mimsy, Wild Hogs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Everyone’s Hero. And isn’t exposing a child to two hours of mediocrity harmful, too?

The Del Monte Experiment

I once ran away with a girl to California. She attended Stanford and I stayed at her dorm while I looked for a place. When I first got there her roommate took me on a tour of the campus. Upon arriving at the quad she pointed out Jordan Hall.

“That’s where they did the Stanford Prison Experiment,” she said. “A professor took got some students to pretend to be guards and others to be prisoners. They had to shut it down because the guard students started abusing the prisoner students.”

Sounded cool. Mad scientist conducts cruel experiments on young men. The experiments involving real people have always fascinated me. Did you ever that film in school warning about drugs, the one where they use footage of clinical experiments with LSD? Good stuff.

I looked for it, or something like it on YouTube, but all I found was this:



…and this one on the dangers of hotdogs when using drugs…



But I was able to find this other video I remember where they examined the effect of LSD on spiders:



Sorry, I get distracted easily. Where was I? The Stanford Prison Experiment. Flash forward to about three weeks ago when John Steward brought Philip Zimbardo onto the Daily Show. Turns out Zimbardo is the mad scientist! And he just wrote a book called The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. It’s about the SPE and its relation to Abu Ghraib.

So I’ve been reading this book and I’m on the part where he’s detailing some of the abuses by the Stanford student guards. They don’t beat the prisoners or anything, but they exercise dominance over eating, pissing, shitting, talking, sleeping and movement. They leverage the comfort of other prisoners to squash rebellious or disobedient prisoners.

Remember that scene from Full Metal Jacket with the jelly donut?



Flash forward to last night. My kid’s friend and his mom are over for dinner. And the friend is not eating his food. Understandable, since I’m a pretty lousy cook. The highlight of the meal is the tilapia, which he won’t even try. But then he starts asking for stuff like Fruit Roll-ups and gummy vitamins.

The solution is simple bribery/bargaining. Finish A + B and you can have C + D. It’s pretty standard stuff I’m pretty sure every parent has used at least once. The teaching value of this type of arrangement is vague, but I figure it’ll help if the kid ever becomes a labor organizer or something.

But then my child ups the ante, asking for, ironically, a donut. Amazingly, he actually finished all the food on his plate, which he never does. The straight forward solution is pretty obvious. Give subject 1 a donut and inform subject 2 he can get one too only if he eats all the food on his plate. But I try a different, more sinister approach:

The friend can have a donut if he eats all of his corn. But my kid can have a donut if his friend eats half of the corn on his plate. How diabolical is that?

Halfway through the corn, subject 2 loses interest and the two wander off. 20 minutes later they come back for the donuts. I’ve cleaned off the table by then and the opportunity to finish the corn is gone.

I give my kid his donut, of which he asks to share with his friend.

“It’s you donut, you can do whatever you want with it.” Now, in all honesty, I’d rather they both eat only half a donut. In retrospect, if I would have just given each half a donut in the first place, everything probably would have gone okay. But I think as a matter of pride subject 2 couldn’t swallow that the only reason he was getting any donut at all was through the benevolence of subject 1. He was, after all, the one who had to do all the corn eating in this deal.

So he broke down and started crying. It was as all very tragic. Eventually he left with his half-donut still weeping. The part that really made me feel like shit, however, was that I completely forgot to give him his Fruit Roll-Up.

Standing on Eviction

His grandmother told him he grows a little each night, so every morning now he wants his growth charted on the jamb between the kitchen and living room.

This morning he put up his own marks and I had to scold him for it.

Children really don’t grow a little each night, I don’t think, and besides, we don’t own this apartment – we’re only renting.

I spent the walk to school explaining what would happen if we didn’t pay our rent each month. I went through the process of eviction as well as I know it. He seemed comforted when I told you have a few weeks or months after you are issued a notice of eviction to move out.

But I just looked into it apparently it only takes three days to kick a person out of his apartment. I guess I’ll share that news with him tonight. I try to be honest with him, not shield him from reality.

Student gunmen, sexual predators, wars on terror, global warming, escalated incidences of asthma and cancer among New Yorkers – you got to keep it real.

But with all the bad, there’s the undeniable beauty of the city we live. Even a trip to the movies can be awe inspiring.

WARNING: BLACK PEOPLE IN BROOKLYN!

Since moving to Park Slope, I’ve joined a few neighborhood parent Yahoo groups. It’s interesting to read what all these different people post and it says a lot about the neighborhood I live in.

The following is a well intentioned alert about an “African American” wondering around in the park who was “looking at people with a menacing face and the passing them by.”
She ended up calling the police on the dude and sending out this group post.

(NAMES WERE REMOVED TO PROTECT THE NAÏVE)

“I wanted to let people know that twice in the last week in the North Slope my husband and I spotted a strange-looking man. The first time was last Wed., the day the Darfur camp was being set up, around 6:30 PM in Long Meadow. A 30-35 year old African American male, 6'2" or 6'3" in a black sweatshirt with a hood and matching black sweatpants was wandering around the meadow very slowly, seemingly on drugs, looking at people with a menacing face and then passing them by. (There were other people there at that time who may have seen him and may be on this list. Tonight around 7:30 PM the same man was on President St. between 8th and PPW, walking down the street very slowly. When I came his way with my daughter he turned, faced me and began to approach. I turned around and went around the corner, my husband came and we called the cops. In the meantime, another woman also started to go down President St. and was so frightened she called her boyfriend to come meet her. By the time the police came, he had wandered off the block (toward the park). I don't have any faith that they found him, even though he moves slowly, but wanted people to be aware in the north part of the park and on the surrounding streets. He is recognizable by the black jogging suit, very gaunt cheeks, shaved or very short hair, slow gait and intense expression. Use caution. - ***, mother of a 1-yr-old”



Since this was posted there have been a couple of encouraging responses like, “It’s not illegal to walk around in the city and make faces at people…” and “I think that we in Brooklyn have so much potential to model good, inclusive citizenship that provides for us to question why we have ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ people.”

That last quote comes from a lady who included a story about her crazy-ass neighbor coming to her aid one evening.

What really worries me is that I didn’t really think too much about her warning the first time I read it. I should have been the first one to post a smartass comment about it. I’ve been living in the San Antonio barrio for the past six years, a place where drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes walk openly down the street.

Have I been mugged yet? Indeed.

(m = rise/run)

Perpetually late, every morning involves rushing my six-year-old. I’ve got nobody to blame for us being behind schedule, but yet make him feel responsible.

My dad would do the same crap to me.

Once out the door, six minutes past 8, the trek to elementary school involves a walk up two long Park Slope blocks. Awhile back I figured out a way to trick him into keeping up with my brisk pace.

I talk to him.

I told you I was the best dad ever.

As we locked up the apartment, he randomly recounted a conversation from school where someone told him Yoda was dead.

Yoda, I imagine, came up in elementary-school conversation when Celo brought up how we spent the weekend dueling with lightsabers in the park. (Best Dad Ever)

This provided an opportunity to recount the events of Empire Stikes Back on the hurried trip to school. I threw in the Battle of Hoth, Jedi Training, Cloud City, Vader’s Horrific Revelation and the Carbonite-ization of Han Solo for padding.

In case you’re doubting my Best Dad Ever status at this point I can assure you he’s seen The Original Trilogy before, but admittedly not as many times as he should.

In other school news, I found out yesterday the school’s award winning chess team was disbanded this year for a loss of Title 1 Funding. This makes no sense to me.

The PTA is working on raising funds for a coach. One parent was telling me they’re trying to hire the old coach who wants like $16,000 for the year. Seems we could maybe get a cheaper coach…