Sunday was packed full of things to do. But we still managed, all of us, to steal away and let the kids take their shoes off and run around and play at the beach playground. It was a perfect afternoon for a spur of the moment beach visit.

I sat sort of in the middle of the playground under some shade with the baby on my chest as I kept an eye on the Girl Child who was playing with an old camp friend (the Girl Child was remarkably upfront about requesting that the mother of said camp friend push her on the tire swing). It was very peaceful as I sat there, rubbing my cheek against the baby's head and cooing at him while he tried to gum my thumb off. I actually started to relax.

And then came two mothers who sat beside me. One briefly remarked to me that our two daughters were in the same kindergarten class but, before I could introduce myself, she turned to her friend and they tuned me out. Oh, but I wish I could have tuned them out. See, they weren't just any two moms, they were Alpha-Moms. Alpha-Mom1 kicked things off by talking about her problems with her publishing company, about how she wasn't getting the support she needed, even though her book had, at one point, been below 1000 on Amazon for a whole week! Alpha-Mom2 really didn't have much to say about that, couldn't really top it, but did manage to express a lot of sympathy and support.

Then, however, the battleground shifted. It turned to their children. The big guns came out as they each tried to out do each other on the "my child is doing more interesting activities than your child front".

It was horrifying. They sat there and, in the name of good parenting, tried to top each other while pretending to share information. It went from soccer here ("if they get good enough, maybe they can be on traveling teams together!"), to ballet here, to tennis there, back to figure skating, and on. Alpha 2 got some of her own back against the book thing by pointing out that she had signed up for every available slot for lunch room monitoring and recess monitoring. Alpha 1 countered by playing up her own college athletics experiences (to look at this woman, you would be astounded to hear she ever broke a sweat on purpose, by the way) and then going into how she wanted her girl to learn how to play squash. That kind of topped it all since Alpha 2 had never even heard of squash.

[Full disclosure: I had already tried to sign the Girl Child up for squash but she has to wait until she's 7. I did it because I thought she'd like it and it would be fun for us to play together.]

As Alpha 1 extolled the virtues of squash and how she had played in college and all of her many triumphs on the squash court, I gave up. I got up and walked away. I couldn't take it any longer. My own anxiety level was shooting through the roof as I realized how poorly (read: sensibly) scheduled my daughter was. Seriously. I mean, I had heard of parents like these but never seen them in the wild, in their native habitat -- the playground.

I walked over to the parents of the kid my daughter was playing with, introduced myself, and begged for shelter. They kindly took me in and calmed me down.

Oh, I forgot, the only time the two Alphas paid any attention to me was when I had occasion to address a few remarks in Norwegian to the Girl Child. The two Alphas fell silent and then immediately wanted to know what language I was speaking to my daughter in. I have to think that the demand for Norwegian language tutors is going to skyrocket in Westport as a result. Just skyrocket.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:40 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 How do you say "Confusion to the Alphas!" in Norwegian? I went looking for the Norwegian word for "squash" and apparently it is simply, "squash." [http://www.bowlingogsquash.com/squash.htm]

Posted by: MCNS at September 11, 2006 11:56 AM (7eYDK)

2 Parents like that are the reason why psychopharmaceutical use is skyrocketing among the under-18 set. Grr, do I hate listening to moms (or dads) play "can you top this"! Their kids turn into super-achievement-focused automatons who don't care what they do as long as they're the best at it. Those are the parents who come storming into the classroom demanding to know why their little scholar got an A and not an A-plus - or worse yet, why their little scholar got written up for plagiarizing and can you PROVE it was REALLY plagiarism and isn't it somehow YOUR fault that THEY "didn't know" it was cheating ... and so forth. Gah!

Posted by: Caroline at September 11, 2006 12:21 PM (RRFHj)

3 Argh! Well, you survived and even got a story out of it, right? And who knows when those kids might need Norwegian? Might set them on a whole career path...

Posted by: Hannah at September 11, 2006 04:06 PM (ImQx2)

4 My poor, deprived son is taking swimming lessons and that's it. My husband and I decided long ago to stay away from the Alpha race. We don't want it for us or our kids. It's always so silly to hear when other people start competing though.

Posted by: Jordana at September 11, 2006 05:21 PM (v3uk2)

5 When did it go from "What's best for my child" to "What makes my child the best"? It's just glorified child abuse.

Posted by: Brian B at September 14, 2006 02:15 AM (NLbbU)

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Saturday was a busy day. I had the Boy Child and the Girl Child showered, dressed, fed and out of the house by 7:15 a.m. for an 8 o'clock dentist appointment. They both did very well at the dentist and loaded up on small things out of the prize chest -- stickers, plastic bugs, and cheap jewelry. On the way back to CT, we had the following exchange:

GC: Pappa, you better roll the windows up so our stickers don't blow out.

BC: Uh, oh! Girl Child, your butterfly necklace just blew out the window!

GC: WHAT!?!?!!!

BC: I kidding.

GC: [tone: a little angry and very firm] Boy Child! Do NOT joke about jewelry blowing out the window!

Just so we're all clear. Some things, you just shouldn't joke about.

I don't mean to give the impression that she's a girly-girl. Far from it.

Me: GC, are you playing at all with that girl Sophie in your class?

GC: No, she's mean.

Me: Why do you say that?

GC: She says stupid things.

Me: Like what?

GC: Like girls should only play with girls and boys should only play with boys. That's stupid. I like to play with [rattles off a list of six boys].

One mother, who knew the GC from pre-school and is now a recess monitor at kindergarten, confirmed for me that while a lot of the girls like to sit around, the GC prefers to run around and play with the boys. Good for her, I say. In the long run, it is a healthier attitude.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:07 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Good. She's earning the boys' respect right off the bat. Believe it or not, I'll bet that makes her even more mysterious to 'em.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at September 11, 2006 08:19 AM (frcLH)

2 Go Girl Child! Just make sure she doesn't do the same thing I did - only hang out with the guys, end up in a very guy oriented profession... and GASP - not even know how to deal with makeup. But then again, after reading the necklace episode, I don't see that coming fast.

Posted by: Hannah at September 11, 2006 04:08 PM (ImQx2)

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I was putting the Girl Child to bed last night and we had the following interchange:

GC: Pappa, can I have some glue?

Me: Why?

GC: To glue my little bench back together.

Me: Which bench?

GC: You know, the little one I got in Norway and which broke? Which clearly wasn't my fault since I said we should have left it in Norway.

I worry about her telling her teacher that she's "clearly" wrong. I mean, what amuses me. . .

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:27 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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