Suburban Turmoil
“I finally decided to visit your playgroup,” a blond housewife named Margaret confided smugly to the half-dozen moms seated with their babies around my friend’s den, “because the catfighting at the Green Hills Moms Club has been just horrible. So now I’m looking for something a little less…social.”
I frowned at her darkly. What exactly made the Green Hills Moms Club more social than my Bellevue playgroup? I mean, besides their Junior League memberships. And their luxury cars. And their clothing from some place other than Old Navy. Well, we didn’t need any of those things, and we sure as hell didn’t need Margaret, either.
But lying awake in bed that night, I began to worry. By denying my toddler a fashionable playgroup, was I sending her on a downward spiral that would continue on through an assortment of Wrong Birthday Party Themes and Wrong Schools and culminate in her serving up Dilly Bars at a dingy Fentress County Dairy Queen?
At 4 a.m., I did the unthinkable. I emailed the Green Hills Moms Club and let them know I wanted to visit. Three days later, I headed off to a member brunch at the home of a woman I’ll call Mugsy.
Baby and I joined four women in Mugsy’s toy-filled backyard, deep in a yawn-inducing conversation about nipple shields. When the conversation turned to organic baby food, words tumbled out of my mouth that I could only attribute to an attack of sheer lunacy.
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
“My daughter loves those dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets from the grocery,” I blurted. The other moms politely looked away. “You know,” I went on, “they’re like, pre-made from God-knows-what. Hell, they could have ground beaks in them for all I know.” I laughed weakly. “I’m just glad she’s getting her protein.”
The shocked silence that followed left me prickling with embarrassment. Why, why, why had I exposed my shameful processed-food-feeding habit to the Wild Oats crowd? I could see Baby’s social prospects floating away like the bubbles from Mugsy’s backyard bubble machine.
Thankfully, at that moment, some Grand Poobah of the Green Hills social set arrived and Mugsy spent the rest of the brunch genuflecting. Within a few minutes, Baby and I were able to say our goodbyes and beat a hasty retreat.
I spent several days bemoaning the likelihood that Baby would never be a debutante before fate intervened in the form of an email from a mom inviting me to her East Nashville playgroup. My brow wrinkled in confusion. A Bellevue-East Nashville playgroup union seemed about as unlikely as Jack White and LeAnn Rimes appearing in concert together. But now that raising a Swan Ball Baby was out of the question, I began to mull over the prospect of bringing up an artsy Baby. A funky galoshes-wearing Baby. A historic-house-renovating Baby.
We made plans to attend the East Nashville playgroup the next week. As we drove into the ’hood on the appointed day, I took a good look at the hookers on the street corners, the broken glass on the sidewalks and the dozens of men carrying that quintessential East Nashville accessory known simply as the Brown Bag. Once we arrived, I ripped Baby from her car seat and ran down the sidewalk to the coffee shop, brandishing my keys like brass knuckles.
“Hey,” one man said as we passed.
“So help me God, this wedding ring is a diamonelle and I don’t have a dollar to fuel your crack habit!” I shouted.
“Lindsay, I’m Jonathan. We used to work together.”
“Don’t try that crap with me, cowboy,” I said, scowling. “I didn’t watch Trainspotting for nothing!”
Once inside Bongo Java, Baby and I settled in among a small group of kids and their moms whose life stories were as offbeat as their eyeglasses. Soothed by the intoxicating effect of shared dysfunction, I quickly found myself telling these perfect strangers all of my secrets.
“I have no money either,” I admitted dreamily. “Yet I’ve been downloading songs on iTunes like there’s no tomorrow.” The moms seemed unimpressed. “Oh, and also,” I continued quickly, “I’m thinking of getting a tattoo.” I wasn’t, but I hoped it would satisfy them.
We spent an idyllic two hours drinking coffee and later watching the kids play at Shelby Park before Baby and I headed back to Bellevue. As I drove, I realized that if I joined this playgroup of urban pioneers, I was doomed to forever play their Mrs. Olsen, bringing out Nelly every once in a while to remind them of what they weren’t missing. Yuck.
So here we sit, Baby and I, back at playgroup square one. I can’t help but imagine her sitting in some shrink’s office 30 years from now, trying to discover the roots of her paralyzing identity crisis.
“My mother was a playgroup hopper,” she’ll say from the couch in her groundbreaking eureka moment, “unable to commit either of us to any one social persona. That’s it, doctor. It’s all my mother’s fault!”
And you thought this stuff was child’s play.