This past weekend, my wife upheld an 18-year tradition she
has of working at the Super Saturday charity event to
benefit ovarian cancer research. That left me to look after our three small
children by myself.
The weather forecast called for rain, so I took my three
girls to the NewYork Hall of Science, which is a great place to take children. It has a
dedicated indoor play area along with tons of other hands-on educational fun
throughout.
“Wow, you’ve got three kids. Respect,” said a guy in the
bathroom as I was shepherding my girls to the sinks to wash their hands.
“Thank you,” I said, not knowing what else to say. A few
hours later, as I and the kids were finishing up our lunch, another Dad come
over and offered to give me some beverages from his cooler, saying we looked
low on drinks (we weren’t). I thanked him but declined the offer.
There seems to be a common thread among any comments that
strangers make to me when I’m out on my own with my kids that since I am a Dad
it’s a miracle that my children are not dead from disease or living as feral
savages five minutes after leaving the house. I have no cause to think that I
can do this job better than my wife, but keeping children alive is not a
rarified art form.
It wasn’t that long ago that people less education and
lower-paying jobs had many more kids. My father is one of seven. There are
people in New York today with giant families. When I worked at JFK Airport, I
met an immigrant who was bringing his 13 children into the U.S. on immigrant
visas. His wife was in a wheelchair and looked very tired.
My wife gets a different comment: “I see you got your hands
full,” is what people say to her. It doesn’t matter if they are male or female,
old or young. That’s what everyone says to her that feels the need to comment
on her managing our superior offspring.
I got that comment only once, at the supermarket, after one
of our toddlers threw a temper tantrum that must have been heard by all of
College Point, Queens. It was an older woman, her voice filled with schadenfreude,
and cigarette smoke, and the sickening crackle of base stupidity. I ignored her
and went about my grocery shopping.
Tantrums elicit the most unwelcome attention from armchair
parents or bad parents who need to feel superior. On the 7 train recently a
woman was struggling to contain her young son who was in the middle of throwing
a blood-curdling tantrum when I got on at Grand Central Terminal. By the time
they got off the train many stops later, the kid had calmed down, but not
before a dozen people spent an inordinate amount of time staring at her. One of
the slack-jawed gawkers was a father who had kids with him. He had the chutzpah
to bring a double-wide stroller onto a crowded 7 train, plowed into several
passengers trying to squeeze out of the train, and then cursed us from the
platform for not helping enough. A loser Dad to beat all loser Dads.
If you see a child throwing a temper tantrum and a parent is
handling it, let them handle it. Don’t stare at them or made sarcastic
comments. If there was a cure for the terrible twos (and threes and fours...)
someone would have had a vaccine for that long ago. The kid’s screaming is
nowhere near as annoying to you as it is draining and mortifying for the parent
or parents involved. If you sincerely have something positive to contribute or
do to help, then thank you tenfold. You are the rare gem among a sea of
self-satisfied and smug breeders that love to torment their fellow parents.
And unless your comment is actually helpful and important,
like “Excuse me, I think your daughter in the pink dress just pooped on a
street corner,” or “Your baby just picked up a large knife,” then no one needs
to hear your comments about our (relatively) large brood. Thank you for
noticing our amazing virility and the ability to keep all of our children
alive. Please leave us alone.
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