Swing states

I thought I'd found the keys to the universe outside of a climbing cube at our neighborhood playground many years ago. This was back in the early-2000s when I was an exhausted, mid-30s mom with two small children who ALWAYS wanted me to play.

It was the first time that age didn’t seem like a number as much as an advancing collection of physical ailments rooted in lack of sleep.  

"Oh, moms don't play," said a gravelly voice from the park bench beside me. 

"Moms," the woman, who might have been my twin had she been a full foot shorter, explained "have a sworn duty to watch and referee. We don't PUL-AY!" 

Her children did not seem convinced by her theatrical pronunciations. 

They tried to pry her off her shaded perch and join them on the slide by calling her out on her obvious falsehood. 

"Last week you went on the teeter-totter and the monkey bars."

But she was planted quite firmly in her arguments.

"I know it's disappointing. The rule was just handed down yesterday by the higher-ups in Momgress.

"Section IV of Article IX of the Momstitution states quite clearly that children must learn the propulsive mechanisms for achieving variable pendular levels on playground apparatus with minimal guidance. And since the best way to learn is by doing, the most I can do is four pushes at the swing."

To be honest, I liked the idea of rigid roles. Especially in that moment when I didn't want to try and fit myself into something smaller or suffer the almost unbearable nausea that accompanied any amount of spinning whatsoever.

It also fits the dominant parenting philosophy that moms and their kids can't ever really be friends because the power structure prevents it.

Often, we think of this as a sad declaration on the state of the family as a hierarchal mentoring unit that's sole purpose is to apply wet blankets to the fire within. 

I think the thing we tend to gloss over is that "friends" like "family" aren't monoliths. But they aren't interchangeable either. Like the teeter-totter, it’s not just a balance. Without the highs and lows, there isn't a ride. 

This became clearer to me once my children grew into teenagers, one of whom drives a car and has a job and will be going off to college in just one short trip around the sun.

Mom, it turns out, isn't a job description. There's no real contract with codified rules. You don't get to retire. It's more like a never-ending TED Talk where you are mostly in the audience alternately fearing, hoping, or grousing about having to be on stage. 

Of course, your experience may vary. The keys to this universe are always getting lost in between the couch cushions of our communications. No matter how much GPS tracking we apply, these keys are often un-couched by memory or the retracing of steps. 

Sometimes the work at hand is as easy as asking point-blank if the help their asking for is with taking the lead or following it.