The Weekend Parent
One of our neighbors in our old building had a baby about six months after we did. She was a nice woman, petite and pretty, with a soft southern drawl that let on that she was a transplant to Chicago from Alabama. I never spoke to her much until Carter was born and she was three months pregnant. Suddenly, she’d light up when she saw us, full of questions about how we planned to raise him.
She was one of those highly strung soon-to-be parents who feel that if their kids don’t start learning Chinese by the time they’re two they’ll never get into Harvard, or that the slightest disciplinary slip will send them down the path to a life in the penal system. I listened patiently as she told me about her plans to teach her son sign language, then pretended I had to check the mail so I could get away. Harmless though. Like I said, she was perfectly nice, just a little too intense for our more laid back approach to parenthood, aka The “Let Him Bust His Lip a Few Times, That’ll Teach Him to Climb on the Chairs” Method.
She had a little boy, and as intense as she was about parenting I could tell she just as intense about her career, something in sales of course. Soon I’d run into her in the mornings, strapping him into a carseat with a Burberry blanket and hauling him off to a sitter. Look I understand, not many families can afford one spouse to stay at home full-time to raise the children, and a lot of people don’t want to exchange a career that they love for changing diapers either. I’m in a unique situation, so I don’t judge my old neighbor for going the nanny route one bit.
What did interest me though, was that any time I saw her with her son, in the evening or on the weekend, she seemed like she was having the time of her life. She’d be dressed up in her best clothes, looking like a million bucks, cooing over the baby and loaded down with enough gear to storm Baghdad. I thought about what I must look like if she ran into me somewhere with Carter: red-faced, sweaty, annoyed, trying to untangle Bootsy’s leash from the stroller wheels or holding Carter in a fireman’s carry while he screams and slaps me in the face. Am I already sick of it because I spend so much time with him, while my workaholic neighbor looks forward to her little bundle of sunshine for the few hours she can get with him a day? I thought about how Debbie spends time with Carter, and while her schedule lets her be around more than most working parents, she seems to get a lot more enjoyment out of him too. Is going to work the secret to not wanting to put your kids to bed at 3 every day and having a drink?
Last weekend my sister Meghan visited–again, not around babies all the time, having a ball–and we took Carter to the Shedd Aquarium. Not our best idea ever since it was 90 degrees outside and a Saturday, so the place would be packed with sweaty, funky tourists there to gawk at the new Komodo dragon. But we figured Carter would like it because the aquarium has lots of big displays and visual effects he could appreciate. Wrong. He held out for about 40 minutes through the Wild Reef shark exhibit, but by the time we made it to the Oceanarium and dolphin show, he’d had enough of looking at sweaty butts from his stroller. He revolted, an epic temper tantrum: screaming, kicking, tears, snot, the works. I carried him out by his ankles and we went home, cashing in a $15 parking ticket for 45 minutes of use.
On the way home though, I realized that yes, getting bitch-slapped by a toddler in public is embarrassing, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I can go back to the aquarium the next day if I want, no biggie. A weekend parent like my old neighbor might have planned that trip to the aquarium for weeks, down to the last detail to maximize her short time with her son. If he’d thrown a fit like Carter, it would ruin the whole day and she wouldn’t get another chance for at least another week. And getting kicked in the nads by some light-up Reeboks didn’t bother me so much because I’d already gotten Carter to laugh himself into hiccups twice that day. So if you see me on the street with Carter and Bootsy, looking a little disheveled, trying to keep Carter from grabbing the dog poop while I bumble with a plastic bag to pick it up, tell me to lighten up. I have plenty of time.
