My son started school a couple years ago. He entered a whole new world where mom and dad aren’t always there. I entered a whole new world where grown-up women say the craziest things.
I remember being a kid. Granted it’s getting a little fuzzier every day, but I remember. When I was growing up, parents didn’t sit at the playground while kids played. But thanks to either the incredible rise in child molestation or the incredible rise in the media’s coverage of child molestation (you be the judge), no parent would dream of letting their kids out of sight… ever.
So I stand around the edge of the playground with the other sane parents. We could talk about the parents who follow their kids right down the slides, but that’s a little crazy even with molesters lurking behind every tree. What I never realized as a kid, teen, or even as a 20-something was that seemingly normal adult women are severely fucked up.
Let me explain. Because of my work schedule, I am a father in this world dominated by moms. I have always been single, most of them are divorced or in the process of getting divorced. I rent an apartment, they own homes or won them in the settlement.
Before I had a child and even after he was born but before I was ready to socialize with these parent circles, I always imagined them standing around making harmless small talk of no real importance or interest. Oh how wrong I was!
The great part is how it sneaks up on you. Take my recent rant against “No Country for Old Men.” I know it won the Oscar last night, but that only increases my determination to expose it as pretentious crap. Anyway, I’m talking to a mom about how bad I thought it was. She laughs and tells me she liked it. I say, “What were you drunk?” Her answer, “I wasn’t drunk, but I didn’t see it sober.” What!!!
I know plenty of people who indulge well into middle and even old age. But I always thought people stopped casually dropping their penchant for illegal substances into conversations with relative strangers around the time they got their first job with benefits. Or their first stretch of prison time. Whichever comes first. Apparently I was mistaken.
In the past year, my son’s playground has made me privy to more drug use, accidental pregnancies (nevermind that the results are running around in front of us), and loser boyfriends than I was familiar with during nearly 20 years of school and college.
So while my son has been passing the time running, jumping, and climbing, I’ve spent those same times being initiated into the perverse world of grown-up middle-aged women. I will never look at the world the same way again.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
what we lose in innocence and wonder we gain in disillusionment, and in some cases wisdom. “300″ was a good movie though right?
February 26th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
There’s a movie in this, somewhere. “No Playground For Single Dads” - the heartwrenching story of a young man’s search for understanding in a cold, cruel world of Starbucks moms who like their quad venti lattes “Irish” or, as we say in polite Southern company, “what have you.” There are no opening credits - only the opening notes of the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” beginning to play as the camera dollies in ever so slowly on our antihero, his blue eyes squinting into the midday sun…