On one of those rain-forest July days, my daughter wanted to ride her scooter. We drove to Nyack Memorial Park on the Hudson riverfront. "Crap," I said when I spotted the red-and-yellow tent. I had forgotten the Amazing Grace Circus was still going on.
Children holding cotton candy were milling outside the enclosure, lining up to see acrobats and clowns and Millie the Elephant. We parked anyway so my daughter could zip around. "I don't understand why people think it is okay to abuse animals," I said, shaking my head. "I know," my husband replied. "If they only knew how these animals are treated."
My daughter waltzed past the tent. She didn't ask to go in, even though she has never been to the circus. She knows her family has different rules, and for now, she is in our fold.
In time she may end up on the psychiatrist's couch lamenting her parents' strident ideologies but at seven she accepts that chaining an elephant and asking her to do tricks for the sake of human amusement is a grotesque imposition.
Every summer we visit the Catskill Animal Sanctuary in Saugerties. This is a karmic haven for 1,500 farm animals that have been rescued from unspeakable circumstances. You can sit in the turkey enclosure or kiss a 1,000-pound pig or pull down leaves off the willow trees and feed goats. Many of the animals roam free. It is not a petting zoo. It is not a zoo. We don't visit zoos. It is a place where every animal has a story.
Decisions like shunning the circus are not easy. As a child I was taken to the circus but somewhere along the way I developed deep empathy for animals. I don't blame my parents for not knowing better. But I do. I can't in good conscience teach my child that using circus animals is an acceptable form of entertainment.
Not playing by the rules is dicey in suburbia where children are raised in a culture of uniformity. I don't let my daughter go to birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese or eat cafeteria school food or watch television during the week. This makes her different. This makes us different.
Nothing says "suburban childhood" more than the birthday party at a play space in the shopping strip. You bring your daughter to the party of a child she barely knows. Shoes and socks off, she is ejected into a room filled with things she can bounce, roll, jump and climb on. Deafening music roars over squeals. I get a lump in my throat every time I stand on the sidelines and wait for the party to wind down with cold pizza, white-frosted birthday cake and a goodie bag. I remember birthday parties in my basement. My mother, sister and I spent days preparing for it: stringing the colorful Happy Birthday sign across the room, laying out the long narrow table with paper plates and pointy party hats, preparing the games. Today's children's parties remind me of zoos where habituated animals move in rote patterns day after day because that's what they've learned to do.
Fall for us is not the beginning of soccer practice or T-ball or gymnastics. We hike the Gunks or visit the Met or we do whatever we feel like doing that day. This is different. We are not scheduled. This is not how it is in suburbia. When left to her devices my daughter creates whimsical art with paper or she builds Lego that would make Frank Lloyd Wright wink.
I became a parent at 40. I had watched others and decided I wanted to give my child freedom to be who she might be. No flashcards. No force-feeding her to read by age three or four. No choosing her friends. I did not want to raise a monkey grinder, though of course I realize I've inculcated her with my strong notions about what I think is right and wrong.
The other day we were on the beach. Lots of tow-headed kids were digging for clams and putting them in watery buckets. My daughter could not understand how they could be so cruel as to snatch these creatures from the sea and cart them away to be eaten. Neither could I.
In your own article you have written what normal is. Granted to you that different is that opposite of normal based on you articles and how many times you said I'm not normal, I'm different. You wrote, "I don't let my daughter go to birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese or eat cafeteria school food or watch television during the week. This makes her different." So there for things you don't let her do are normals because you don't do them and therefore you are different. Also since you are a reporter you should know how to write without bias. I will show you how. In your post you wrote, "If, however, your version of "normal" means choosing whether or not to inflict upon my offspring the kind of bacteria-laden, danger-riddled human habitrails I often see erected at McD's and Chuck E." What you should have written was "If normal to you means let my child go to Mcdonalds and Chuck E." That is without bias or at least close to it. Last thing. You wrote my world is unpunctual and strawberry flavored. My punctuation is usually correct, but I mean come on I have 3 kids who all have there own needs. I don't have time to check everything. Also, strawberrys taste good, so I am guessing you are saying that I have a positive outlook on the world. I do. A negative view will get you nowhere.
It is popular these days to say you don't like something popular because you want to be different. Many do this, but I haven't seen any on such a large scale as you. Probably because you're crazy. Instead of doing that how about you do what you're daughter wants to do and instead of doing everything the opposite of normal you do some opposite and some normal. Many parents don't have time to do the things you do and some children aren't thinking about animals every second of every day like yours is. Please lighten up.
P.S. Look at a food chain and you will see we have to kill animals to eat them.
Keep going Tina. God loves you.
I don't want to turn this comment into an opportunity to bash you, but some of your articles show a trend that concerns readers who want to read your true feelings, not your deep anger at the world hidden behind criticisms of those who 'fit in' with a suburban stereotype you portray.
Your attempts to show off your 'non-conformity' are so predictable that they conform to your own idea of who you want to be, which is hypocritical to say the least. I'm sure your daughter would love to play soccer, but that does not fit YOUR idea of who she should be. Sounds like you are a conformist of non-conformity.
If you want to teach your daughter a real life lesson, not one of your self-hate fueled hypocrisies, you should teach her to see the world as a friendly place, not one where everyone is out to get you. The kids collecting clams at the beach are having fun, they are not staring at you, judging your every move. The kids at Chuckie Cheeses are having a kids birthday party, its not supposed to be entertaining for you. And the kids who play soccer do it because they thrive in a team-oriented atmosphere where they can let out steam, simple as that.
The world is not out to get you Tina. Accept that and you won't have to go so far out of your way to be different--and you might even be happier.
maybe you should let your daughter go on the moon bouncer with the rest of us unwashed, non-organic sinners and have some "fun"; otherwise she'll grow up to be a somber silvia plath type.