I'm Watching You, Butterball

A few moments ago I was distracted by a strange and unfamiliar sound coming from outside the window, which I've got open because it's a balmy 73-degree winter day. I knew that it was a voice that I heard, but it was a particularly cartoonish sound of some indeciperable but continually repeating mantra. I wondered what the hell it was.

Next door to our apartment is a dance studio, and weekday afternoons there is a steady stream of mothers escorting their young daughters to ballet classes. It's pretty cute. So as I tried to figure out what this sound was, I was unsurprised when the first thing I saw coming into view was a mother and, a couple feet behind, her kindergarten-ish aged, tutu-clad daughter. Seemed pretty clear neither was the culprit.

Then finally I locked my target on the source: a chubby, maybe ten-year-old boy trailing behind his sister and mom. He was saying over and over again--in what I think he intended to be a spooky, whispered, ghostlike chant--"You can't beat me! You can't beat me! You can't beat me!" I think he was taunting the younger sister over some theoretically friendly competition they'd had, maybe Tiddly Winks or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Damn I'm glad I'm not a kid anymore. There's no teacher, or parent, or coach that is going to tell me what to do and expect me to all but snap to attention or salute. And more importantly, there's not some bully in the schoolyard or the next bedroom over who's going to fuck with me just for kicks. Maybe as an adult you've got a boss to deal with, or somebody else you have to answer to. But, at least in my book, they still all are implicitly required to show a certain amount of respect, to obey some code of ethics that most of the time you're at least going to try and act like grown-ups.

Not to sound like a country-western song, but even when the bills are piling up, or traffic and politics and the job are pushing that stress-o-meter upward, at least as an adult you're not in that societally-sanctioned prison that childhood can be. And I say all this as one of the lucky ones, who had an agreeable family life without any measurable dysfunction and lots of good times, not to mention and usually-steady network of friends. But there were bullies I faced as well as other perceived horrors I'll spare you the details of. And even when their reasons were good, I hated that my parents could lay down the law and I had to accept it.

Ultimately the fat kid's taunting was probably no big deal. Chances are the little girl can take it just fine. But I'll take the atrophy of age any day over having to learn how to take care of yourself and wait for the chance to do it.

Comments

[Sara]

I remember when I was little, I would take in all of the used cans from The Sage for money. After feeding all the cans into the machine, I'd have to stand in the check-out line for a cashier to redeem my ticket and give me the money. All the adults in line would cut in front of me, assuming that I must be lost. I would be furious. And when I would man the cash register at the restaurant (which I was entirely capable of doing, even at age 6) people would stand there waiting around for a "real" cashier. It was just so enfuriating that no one ever considered I was a real person capable of doing normal activities just because I was a kid.

[sue]

Just dropping by to say I hope you don't verbally refer to a kid as "butterball." That would be sad.