Can’t We All Just Get Along? No!

Not mine!

Not mine!

JP, cover your ears (or your eyes; this is a blog; oh wait, you’re three–you can’t read; continue with your business): New York HATES you. And let’s not even get into how they feel about Matt’s darling child Sasha. Don’t feel too bad, though, kids: they really hate me.

We’ve been running a lot of hate-as-love about parenting on this site of late, but this article in last week’s Times delved so deeply into the antipathy against city parents that I thought it merited attention.

What’s the new crime? Hyperactivity in restaurants? Nope. Fucked-up kid names? Uh-huh. No, the newest grip is none other than: TOO LOUD PARENTING. A crime so awful I’ve put it in ALL CAPS WITH MULTIPLE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!! That means it’s really bad. Here’s a taste:

“We see them everywhere. And if we’re being honest, we have all had the same frightening and ignoble urge to smash their heads in with a brick. I am speaking about those smug and uber-informative moms and dads who do their parenting in public places — aggressively and at the top of their highly educated lungs. They are easy to recognize, decked out in natural fabrics and larded up with the self-importance that comes from foisting “teachable moments” on an unsuspecting public.”

First: I do this. Second: it has nothing to do with wanting other people to notice how good a parent I am. Third: It’s because I’m usually so frustrated with my child that my “aggressive parenting” is a substitute for not yelling at my son in public. Cause people don’t like that much either.

To her credit the fucking moron journalist who penned this screed is a parent and she admits to having done very same thing:

While I may desperately wish that they would shut up, or at the very least use their “inside voice,” it is not because I am morally opposed to displaying one’s parenting skills for the approval of strangers. I myself was a young mother once, and I remember quite clearly the thrill of maternal showboating. What bothers me about this generation of parental windbags is their painful lack of subtlety; when they speak to little Cassidy or Aidan, it is at an almost nuclear volume.

Not that she’s taking any real blame. The difference between me and her? Style:

I may have been a showoff, but I like to think that I did it with panache. I spoke softly and intimately to my children, as if my words were intended only for them, as if I were indifferent to the gentle Madonna-in-blue-jeans image I presented.

And for this she wants to smash my brains in with a brick? Wow! That’s the kind of passion I can really get behind. I would like to say one thing, though, to all those Jew New Yorkers so upset about the behavior of urban children and their satanic parents: deep breath, friends. Can we really be such a bother?

Let’s have a look at Brooklyn, aka, Land of Obnoxious Babies. According to the Census, only about 11 percent of households have children under 6. That’s not a lot of screaming, menu-chucking, badly-named little miscreants. Surely there have to be other things we can all bitch about.

That said, I do love the hate. So, to all our DadWagon readers (and wayward journalists)–keep spewing. Makes me happy.

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About Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

3 thoughts on “Can’t We All Just Get Along? No!

  1. Puzzled–Can I refer you to my bio in the about section of the site? A small in joke, but at times, I do refer to this city as Jew York. Home of my people (and the banking system–coincidence?)–Theodore

  2. yes don’t we all. it pays off to do the research before posting…

    seems i’ve been in red-neck country too long, and i see ignorance, racism, and anti-semitism everywhere now…

    shalom.

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