Micromanaging their fun

When I first noticed this phenomenon, I felt bad about myself and my parenting. Then, as I noticed it more, I got mad and now I’m in a place where it just annoys the shit out of me. What is this?, you ask. It’s parents micromanaging their kids’ fun. Let me ‘splain.

In California, where the weather is beautiful and gorgeous, we spent a lot of time at the playground. Invariably, there would be some parent (usually more than one) holding their kid’s hand as they went along the play structure, or following their kid around as they played atop the giant lizard statue, or saving their kid from the two-foot drop off the spider web-looking thing. Sometimes, there’d be parents actively playing with their kids, going down the slide themselves or swinging on the swings.

I found all of this weird for several reasons, first of all because the play structure sign says Ages 5-12, not ages 5-35. I found it weird because I think it’s healthy for LG (and other kids) to figure out how to get themselves out of sticky situations without their parents’ help, because their parents are not going to be there to do things for them all the time. I found it weird because as a parent, I can be anxious about the swingy bar with a far drop to the ground, but it’s my job to internalize that anxiety and let my kid play on her own, rather than be overtly nervous about her falling five feet off the swingy bar onto the ground. (I was very nervous about the swingy bar but I did not want to let LG know I was nervous about the swingy bar. I want her to be brave and fearless.)

I mostly found it weird, though, because if my kid wanted to play with another kid, oftentimes that meant also playing with that other kid’s parent and here I was, on a bench nearby, listening to a podcast or reading a book and seeming like I was uninterested in my kid as she played with another kid(s) and their parent. Now, this would actually not be untrue! I did not take LG to the park for my fun, unless you count the podcasts or books as fun, in which case, I guess I did take her there for my fun, but not in the, “I’m going to heave my giant ass through this tunnel and pretend to be a monster” kind of fun.

Listen, I don’t ever want to grow up and I spend a fair amount of time doing non-grown-up-type things, like doing improv. The other day, at LG’s initiation, I pretended there was a sleeping dinosaur in our garage and we had to be veeeeeeeery quiet when we got in the car and then we freaked out about the dinosaur and we talked about the dinosaur several more times throughout the day. Yesterday, at LG’s request, I reenacted her birth in our kitchen. It was less messy than the first time and I kept all my clothes on, but my point is, I do indulge my kid in fun things. I am not a monster.

However, when we go to the playground, that is LG’s time to play with other kids her age, not her lame mother or other adults her lame mother’s age. It’s the time where 4-ish-year-olds convene and work shit out among themselves. It is Lord of the Flies out there, except it’s only for an hour or so. And then, if it turns out some kid is being an asshole, we can talk about it either right there, or later that day and we can have a discussion about how some people are assholes and here is how you don’t act like an asshole.

This brings me to the current day, where it’s cold and snowy and you can’t play at the playground, so you play at the library. Our library is pretty great. The entire downstairs is for the kids, so they can run around and be themselves without the constant, “SHHHH!” from their parents, because there are people trying to study or research or play online poker at the computers a few feet away.

The problem is, I see library time as I saw playground time, which equals reading time for me. I have no interest in sitting in the kid-sized chair and watching LG play a game on the iPad (WHY DO THEY HAVE iPADS AT THE LIBRARY? Different rant for a different day.) Without fail, though, there are other parents at the library, following their kids around as they play and then when my kid tries to play with their kid, it turns into their weird game where the kids are being refereed by this other parent as they, like, do puzzles, and there I am, reading Fates and Furies (still not finished) and looking very disinterested. BECAUSE I AM! Because I have plenty of work to do at home, but I am here, for my child, so that she can learn and grow and become independent and a problem-solver and make friends. I don’t need some other woman monitoring whose turn it is on the iPad. I don’t need some lady saying to my kid, “Are you here with your grandma?” as if that would make the absence of a parent make more sense. Oh, tired grandma is taking a rest, for surely if your mother was here, she’d be hovering over you, telling you how to do this puzzle correctly.

I don’t know, maybe I’m the asshole.