Playground Politics
January 6th 2009 20:55
As a soon to be mom of two I often find myself at different playgrounds or playplaces around my city. I am always thankful to get out of the house and usually hope for the best as my firstborn and I embark on new adventures to various places of play. Frequently I meet up with a friend who has a child the same age as mine. As we sit together watching our little ones, and gossiping about all other moms doing the same I cannot help but wonder if the playground is the new "highschool" or if it is the other way around; maybe highschool is just an extention of playground politics.
It seems you can never escape the politics of those four long years of your blossoming adulthood. They follow us everywhere; to the workplace, to the mommy and me group, yoga class and superbowl parties. As women we are constantly excluding and including those moms we deem excludable or includable. We gossip, we share secrets, we make our closest friends and our worst enemies all throughout our lives. But what suprised me most as I sat at one particular playground is that it doesn't start in highschool... it starts much earlier.
My friend, Kay, and I watched as our two children, mine a girl, and hers a boy, discovered everything the playground had to offer. As it is in the dead of winter, this was of course, an indoor playground. Our children are just barely toddlers and Kay's little boy has always been lightyears ahead of my precious little Stella in terms of climbing and jumping, all in all, he is a boy and much, much braver then my little girl.
I marveled this particular time as Stella seemed to have grown overnight into a brave and confident little thing; climbing and jumping and sliding on anything and everything. Aiden, finally didn't have to leave her behind, but the two could pursue like-minded adventures. That is until they came face to face with the ugliness of cliques. That's right, the most dreaded of all cliques.... playground, toddler cliques.
As the two best friends ventured to climb into a hallowed out, giant, football helmet where several other girls had already taken up residence, Stella was allowed to enter, while Aiden was denied access. The "nothing-but-boy" toddler refused to be swayed and pushed past the other small females to take his place next to his best friend.
I thought at first this was smiply a boy versus girl affair and decided not to interfere as other little girls turn their attention to the next group of children trying to enter the now exclusive and private helmet. The new children were also denied access and pushed away. However, this new group that had tried to join the club, were all girls. It seemed that the dominant females, who were no more then two or three years old, were only including those they felt deserved to be there.
Once the new intruders were gone, the original little girls were then able to turn their attention on Aiden, yelling, pushing and pulling on him to leave their most sacred of giant football helmets! Aiden, still oblvious to the obnoxious girls, simply sat next to Stella watching them with amusement.
Of course, no moms did anything to stop the situation, including me, as Kay and I found it hysterical to watch little Aidens resolve. Hopefully he will keep that throughout his life! The fact that the snobbish little girls mothers did nothing to stop it was suprising, however. What was even more suprising to me though, were my own feelings of satisfaction that my daughter had been included and not turned away like the other children. I felt validation on her behalf that she had indeed made it into that exclusive inflatable.
No mother ever wants to see their child left out, but at what cost? Does that mean to encourage your own child to be the excluder? Or to just be thankful that they have passed that ugliest of social tests? I hope that I am able to teach my children to look beyond social politics and embrace and all inclusive type of life.
But as I watched all of this unfold before me at an indoor playground with mere toddlers I have realized that we can never escape it, its with us from the beginning to the end. Maybe it is just our nature as humans, but I really hope that isn't true.
It seems you can never escape the politics of those four long years of your blossoming adulthood. They follow us everywhere; to the workplace, to the mommy and me group, yoga class and superbowl parties. As women we are constantly excluding and including those moms we deem excludable or includable. We gossip, we share secrets, we make our closest friends and our worst enemies all throughout our lives. But what suprised me most as I sat at one particular playground is that it doesn't start in highschool... it starts much earlier.
My friend, Kay, and I watched as our two children, mine a girl, and hers a boy, discovered everything the playground had to offer. As it is in the dead of winter, this was of course, an indoor playground. Our children are just barely toddlers and Kay's little boy has always been lightyears ahead of my precious little Stella in terms of climbing and jumping, all in all, he is a boy and much, much braver then my little girl.
I marveled this particular time as Stella seemed to have grown overnight into a brave and confident little thing; climbing and jumping and sliding on anything and everything. Aiden, finally didn't have to leave her behind, but the two could pursue like-minded adventures. That is until they came face to face with the ugliness of cliques. That's right, the most dreaded of all cliques.... playground, toddler cliques.
As the two best friends ventured to climb into a hallowed out, giant, football helmet where several other girls had already taken up residence, Stella was allowed to enter, while Aiden was denied access. The "nothing-but-boy" toddler refused to be swayed and pushed past the other small females to take his place next to his best friend.
I thought at first this was smiply a boy versus girl affair and decided not to interfere as other little girls turn their attention to the next group of children trying to enter the now exclusive and private helmet. The new children were also denied access and pushed away. However, this new group that had tried to join the club, were all girls. It seemed that the dominant females, who were no more then two or three years old, were only including those they felt deserved to be there.
Once the new intruders were gone, the original little girls were then able to turn their attention on Aiden, yelling, pushing and pulling on him to leave their most sacred of giant football helmets! Aiden, still oblvious to the obnoxious girls, simply sat next to Stella watching them with amusement.
Of course, no moms did anything to stop the situation, including me, as Kay and I found it hysterical to watch little Aidens resolve. Hopefully he will keep that throughout his life! The fact that the snobbish little girls mothers did nothing to stop it was suprising, however. What was even more suprising to me though, were my own feelings of satisfaction that my daughter had been included and not turned away like the other children. I felt validation on her behalf that she had indeed made it into that exclusive inflatable.
No mother ever wants to see their child left out, but at what cost? Does that mean to encourage your own child to be the excluder? Or to just be thankful that they have passed that ugliest of social tests? I hope that I am able to teach my children to look beyond social politics and embrace and all inclusive type of life.
But as I watched all of this unfold before me at an indoor playground with mere toddlers I have realized that we can never escape it, its with us from the beginning to the end. Maybe it is just our nature as humans, but I really hope that isn't true.
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