Episode 14: Mr. Mom goes to the park

For two weeks I have been avoiding the little kid's playground at the park near our house, despite the only reason for my presence at the park being that I am escorting a little kid. I have been telling myself the reason for this is that Av is too small, she can't walk, she can't use the slide. But deep down, the real reason is that I simply do not have enough confidence in myself to mingle among moms and grandmothers and, frankly, I am intimidated by young children.

Because of this, our trips to the park usually consist of looking at leaves, playing in the grass and me pointing at the ocean and her not caring, but today I decided to suck it up, cut through the grass and put her in a damn swing.

When we first go there I only saw one other child and a young mother on a cell phone, so I decided it was safe and just decided to go to the other end of the playground. Soon after, however, the park filled up with a wide variety of presumably unemployed women and their offspring. Some together as a social group, some on their own with just the kids.

I brought Av over to the swing where no one was and realized that she was very intrigued with what the other kids were doing. It was almost like she said to herself, "damn, I wish I was two or three, then I could climb up to the top of the slide with that girl wearing the Cookie Monster overalls."

After 10 minutes or so, another woman came over to use the second swing, but she did not seem interested in talking to me, which, believe me, was just fine. Their trip to the swing set was a quick one, as the little girl had a melt down and had to be taken away to wherever soccer mom's take their screaming kids, like "time out" in the minivan or something.

As the first woman left and the other children moved closer, I decided that Av may like it more if we sat on the picnic table next to the jungle gym and watched the other kids. In this same area was the original mom that I saw when we first got to the park. Her kid was wandering around unattended and she was on the phone with one of her girlfriends complaining about someone I assume was her live-in boyfriend.

"I told him this morning that he was just digging himself a deeper hole," she said. "I am not even going to stick around past tonight, he is just like all of the other guys, give them two months and they go crazy and get all weird."

This conversation was both inappropriately loud and extremely satisfying to me, as the slightly older, more uptight yuppie soccer moms seemed irritated with this woman's actions. Soccer moms have a very distinct glare, I found.

To make matters worse (or better, if you are me) the woman's daughter, Nadia, kept throwing rocks at the other kids, which resulted in a lot of... "Ugh, hold on. NADIA!!! WE DON'T THROW ROCKS! NOT COOL! Sorry about that, she is just being such a brat today."

Much to my surprise, and enjoyment, the soccer moms wanted absolutely nothing to do with us. It was probably a combination of my appearance (scruffy beard, uncombed, probably too long hair and old, ripped jeans) and some sort of "men should be working in corporate America while women watch children" mentality that they have.I am basing that on nothing, by the way, other than my general distaste for soccer moms and twisted vision of my own appearance.

I did feel a little bad for Av because I knew she wanted to play with the other kids,but I was glad to avoid any conversation with a middle aged woman toting along two toddlers and a baby anyway. Av would have been too small to play with Nadia the Rock Thrower anyhow.

Unfortunately for Av, we were getting ready to leave when a little probably 1-year-old boy that I am pretty sure she found attractive showed up with his grandfather. I could tell that she thought he was cute because instead of the usual laughing and inquisitive staring she does when most kids are around her, she stared at him, mouth open and then buried her face in my chest when he looked at her.

He went over to the swing as we were starting to walk away (we were on a strict time schedule, if she didn't get lunch soon no one, not even little wonder boy boyfriend could stop the hunger melt down). I was disappointed only because her new boyfriend was there with his grandfather, and it would have been nice to have another male around the playground to balance off some of that estrogen and sense of entitlement that billows out the back of ther fancy $700 soccer mom strollers.

As we began to walk away, Nadia and her apparently newly single mother became the first, and only, people to talk to us at the park. After a "hello" and a standard "how old?" and "what is her name" I attempted to keep going by saying, "I have to get her home so she can eat"

Nadia's mother understood, but did not let me leave without first saying the following...

"She is adorable, much cuter than those other ugly girls Nadia was running around with over there."

Yup. That is a real statement. I could do nothing but awkwardly laugh and say something along the lines of, "Well I am sure she will grow up to be as cute as your daughter."

"Thank you," she said, and we parted ways.

Now, I did not pay particular attention to any of the other children there, but I did not notice anyone that was super ugly, and I have to say that Nadia was nothing special when it comes to being cute either. This is just the type of social gossip and cruelty I am trying to avoid.