“Exactly how many kids actually live here?” we would sometimes ask one another. The official count was three, but there were usually more around than that.  It suited us fine; our tolerance for rambunctious, barely-controlled chaos was high.  We had five household rules posted on the refrigerator (“No tents in the house” and “No slamming doors,” were testimonies to particular unfortunate events) and everything rolled along fine.  Twenty-six years have come and gone, and now, from an empty nest, I find that I, like many, am expected to be a parent to others’ kids.

Of course, the government is the Grand-daddy, or perhaps the Grandma, of everyone. My Grandma would peek out the lace curtains next door and telephone my mom if we were doing anything dangerous (or fun).  Mom would call us in and suggest that if we were going to do anything stupid, do it on the other side of the house, where her mother-in-law wouldn’t see and report on us.  There were no brick steps to fly off on that side but we managed to risk our necks other ways. 

The federal, state, and local governments, and every zoning board and neighborhood association, have taken over for our Grandmas. They will rat on us and cause trouble if we do anything stupid, or fun. Not only that, like some Platonic ideal of a grandmother, they take a little information and apply it as generously as sunscreen. It would not surprise me in the least if the government issued a news bulletin that sitting on hearthstones will give us “piles,” or that cold milk on cereal will upset our stomachs. None of us imagines that French fries are a health food and yet McDonald’s is incessantly harassed (they ought to take my mom’s advice and consider making the fries on the side of the restaurant NOT facing the Capital building).  When I go out to a fancy dinner – which is infrequent – I do not want the luxury of the experience ruined by a calorie count. I do not want fake margarine; if I’m going to eat too much fresh bread I want real butter.  Leave me alone. I’m big; I can eat what I want.

Worst of all, I find myself in the position of doing a parent’s job.  If you have children in schools, you’re well aware of the phenomena: nutritionists, counselors, social workers, teachers, administrators, and a host of other “-ors” and “-ists” hasten to micromanage your child’s diet, personal hygiene, sex education, and social skills; aspects of life that, when I was still an active-duty parent, I hotly resented having usurped by professionals who fancied they knew better than me about things within my motherly domain. I’d rather they had stuck to math and science and the finer aspects of the rules of volleyball.

But that’s me, speaking for me. There are an awful lot of parents who are terrified of being parents. They don’t want to be “mean,” and they want to be their child’s “friend.” A certain number of them welcome the cavalry of school-based experts-on-your-kid, and are grateful for the assistance in doing some of the dirty jobs of parenting. “I’m not ready to deal with risks from strangers/abuse/puberty/etc.,” they complain, as if their immaturity should provide a magical shield to keep danger and change from their child. If you didn’t care about children, it would be easy to throw up your hands and back away, leaving the parents to deal with the eventual mess of children who are unprepared to deal with reality and the consequences of their behaviors.

My libertarian instincts that say, let grownups deal with the consequences of their own behavior are counterbalanced by a ferocious maternal instinct.  Silly, shallow and hapless parents are on their own - but not their kids. I’ll be every child’s Grandma if the alternative puts them at terrible risk.

...There is a strange little foxtrot between parents who should lead but are unsure of the steps, and experts who ought to only provide backup.  I feel like a female dance instructor back-leading a male student. 

...I am in the insufferable situation of enduring a nearly-omnipotent Federal Grandmother, imposing as Queen Victoria, and simultaneously attempting to minimize my nanny-ish intrusions into private family life.  And so I ask: give your kids their veggies, tell them the facts of life on a reasonable time table, and please, please – just leave me to cover your back.