Scary Dreams

Last week as I was walking down 14th St the intensity of the morning sun reminded me of some things that happened last year. My son had a dream that terrified him, he woke up telling me he had a "lightmare." In his dream, a cabinet in our house was emitting rainbow light and for some reason this really scared him.

I brought this up while talking to some friends of mine at lunch and my friend told me that she had dreams of light that terrified her. In them she'd find herself overwhelmed by bright light that filled her field of vision. It reminds me of how eventually we will all have to face the overwhelming experience of facing justice and truth, which reminds me of the judgement I brought on my self for writing the post called Made Mommies. I really thought it was clear that I was seeing this other random mommy as a mirror for myself. Then I went on to talk about some people whose attitudes of superiority bother me, and I said that. But that little word seemed overlooked by most everyone who responded to the story. some. some. not all. not at all all.

It's for good reason though that people have attitudes about parents who are unwise. It reminds me of the feeling of seeing a little kid at the mercy of an adult who is making terrible decisions. That's terrifying. It's like watching an animal being abused. Alas, we have high expectations for parents, but nature doesn't.

Labels I accumulated as people reacted to the post on the curbed comment thread included lame, lame-o, illiterate, random, cliched, mediocre, bearer of inferiority complex, victim. There were others. Personally, I would add schizophrenic to that list but I am not a psychologist so who am I to make that diagnosis. For some reason, I am delighted by the word random.

I'm random.
Are you?

The word reminds me of how many people there are in the world. I am one of how many billions of random people like dust motes flying around in the air. Cool. I feel so free!

Someone used the word crotchfruit, that's always amusing. The last person to post on that thread said something like "What's all the hating about? I think Park Slope mothers are kind of hot." (yes, I was reading closely...) I was glad it ended that way, with some words that ran as sweet as milk.

Weird to read Gowanus Lounge last week and see the story Blinded By the Light, about people on 16th St. who've been kept awake at night by high intensity lights put up by the builders of the VUE building. Are the developers sadists? This will be a happier hood when people get their nightly melatonin. Please Sara Gonzalez? Please Bill Deblasio? Can you rev up like a deuce (?) and end their lightmare? I want happy neighbors!

Update: Thanks Daniel. Now I know what a deuce is. Or is it know i now? Whatever... time to ride!

Made Mommies

Somewhere in some blog I once again came across a mention of the park slope stroller mafia. Sad thing, I couldn't even become a made mom in the PSSM if I wanted to. Why? I live on the wrong side of the tracks in Windsor Terrace. My house is kind of junky, not a brownstone. I have been told so directly, not by a PS mom though, but by a born and bred PS dad. Who I suppose I could characterize as a yuppie.

I saw a mom with a stroller crossing the street yesterday in South Slope. I instantly felt dislike for her. I suspected her arms had fused with the stroller handles. She looked unhappy and yet very entitled. I saw myself in this woman. My unhappiness and unconscious self-righteousness, the fantasy that I can know everything and do everything right, meanwhile, barely knowing myself or what I want.

I thought of a friend of mine who I've seen pushing a stroller down the street while hysterically exaggerating the swing of her butt. Whenever she does things like that whoever is around melts into a dream of a beautiful playful casualness. It is her magic. She is the antidote. I wish I were like her.

Is it the entitlement and uptightness of some PS mommies that people resent so much? Is that it? Is it that they act like the consumate grown ups when in fact it is a misfortune when people enter that head of arrogance in which they think they actually know better than other people, than their children, what's good and bad, and earnestly carry out those judgements. People who are too interested in what they think they know and have been told to enjoy the complexity of the world unfolding in front of them? Is it possible to have too much control? Oh, I know, it's not just some insecure PS mommies who exercise power with fervor before they have any idea of how to handle it. How do you learn how to handle power anyway?

I try to exercise the appropriate amount of control and caution. I know I should try to do that. Then that person in my who insists on walking backwards shows up and I'm the big fat fool again. I see the same thing in my children, especially the boy who deliberately puts all his clothes on backwards every morning. Even his underwear.

I invite anyone who has taken on more responsibility than is humanly reasonable to join me in my circus tent of insanity on the wrong side of the tracks. A note of warning; my sofa is threadbare and my curtains don't match.

*I know, I used to freak out when PS mommies came under attack from Gawker or NY Magazine. But not because there wasn't some truth in their criticisms. It was because they were so mean about it. And perhaps I wasn't ready to hear what they were saying.

Related Post: Scary Dreams

Club Gawker Gets Its Hate On, Again...

Mort, Mort, why? You let people who get off on feeding their hate intimidate you. Glad we Brooklyn moms were here so you could bond with the cool people over how much you would probably hate us if you lived here.

BY MORT AT 03:13 PM

@dubman:
@ everyone:
You're right, you're right. My problem is that I live in a place where "normal" parents are still the norm and we just laugh at people like this. I'm sure I would hate all parents and their kids if I lived in Brooklyn or somewhere else where the douches are spawning. So forgive me if I was quick to judge you all for your hostility. Now I just pity you.

Humans hating humans, what else is new? Thanks for the blow. Do you really want to jump on that bandwagon? Please, don't. I know you are deluded in your belief that every mom in Brooklyn is a douche. I personally know some that aren't. Are we the new straw dog for everyone's dissatisfaction with the world? I am sure it is douchey Brooklyn spawners fault that the ice caps are melting. That people don't get paid what they should. Real Estate prices are also our fault, lack of opportunity, and basically, we invented the devil, toxic waste, nuclear weapons and the tendency to sabotage human life.

Too bad some people don't have something better to do than get caught up in a maelstrom of self-righteous hate mongering. Too bad I don't have something better to do than get hurt by it. It just seems like an epidemic right now.

And Mort, where exactly do 'normal' parents live. I'd love to know where normal land is.

Oh, and it doesn't matter who you're willing to sacrifice for the cause. The Gawker sharks will always find fault with you. It's that smell of blood, flesh and human fallibility that we have, that they don't, apparently.

Except once the writers themselves didn't attack Brooklyn moms as we were expecting them to as commentary on that NYT story last summer. We were surprised by the mercy.

NY Mag Slanders Park Slope Kids

The writer of the New York Magazine's article about the Park Slope Halloween stripper censorship ends the piece with the lines:

'No one can throw a fit quite like a Park Slope kid.'

Very good, in one line you just defiled the character of thousands of kids you don't even know. Including ones who aren't even born yet. True sometimes kids are brats. And sometimes, writers.

In the interest of truth in reporting, maybe you should have written:

'Now it's time to go in for the jugular, that's what we're all waiting for, right? Isn't that what sells magazines, we get the chance to feel good about ourselves by attacking people we don't know? Feel the rush, yeah, yeah, those kids are little bastards. Let's drink some kiddie blood and make some money!'

I don't think you know the kids I know. Ones who struggle and suffer through their insecurities, who face difficult challenges and gather the strength to walk through them, often with grace and understanding. Who worry about the world, their parents and siblings and pets. Who love greatly. Who grow up among parents with worries and pressure and insecurities that prevent the deep connection and validation they crave.

In this case, it wasn't even the kids throwing the fit, it was the administrators of this puppet show and the Middle School who decided that even though this is a free country sometimes things get a little too free. Women with too much freedom, run them out of town! PC never meant free.

But NY Mag, I'm not mad at you. You are poisoned with the same poison we are all poisoned with, and its not fun. We'll keep spewing that poison of externalized self-loathing at each other forever unless we find a way to be truly helpful to the struggling souls we share this world with. Even though I don't know you, I think it's what people really want deep down. But what are the chances of rising above it, when half the time it's what you get paid for?