Camazotz

Yesterday I was thinking about writing up the story of this month and pitching it to Brain, Child or another publication. Not just as <dramatic intonation> one woman's saga </dramatic intonation>, but as a reflection on shifting societal norms.

An example: when I was a kid, I played all the time in the creek that ran behind our house. A fellow fifth-grader drowned in that creek, but nobody ever told me to stop, or to make sure I had direct parental supervision. Those were some of the most delightful hours of my tenth and eleventh years -- poking around in the mud with my dog, swinging on the branches, naming my favorite spots.

These days a much smaller creek runs through our neighborhood. Honestly, a person would have to work at it to drown in that creek. But my kids are forbidden to play there. This is our fourth year here and they've never set foot in it. When I was a kid the line was drawn in one spot: it was normal for kids to play in creeks. Now it's drawn in another. How do we balance the suffering of the one family whose child drowns against all the hours of fun to be had playing in a creek? How much room is there for individual families to make decisions that go against the norm?

I was thinking that as an illustration I might mention Camazotz, from A Wrinkle in Time. Remember the neighborhood where all the kids bounced their balls and jumped their ropes in time? One child was out of sync with neighborhood expectations and had to be reported to the authorities for inappropriate ball-bouncing. I am not willing to live in Camazotz, I was going to say in my essay. But I was talking it over with Elwood last night when it occurred to me: even in Camazotz, for heaven's sake, children played outside without their parents.

The larger reason why Camazotz isn't a great analogy is that we're not out of sync with neighborhood norms. Yesterday I was talking about this on my front porch with another neighborhood mother who used to work for CPS. Two kids came running down the middle of the street, no parents in sight. "Look! Negligent parenting!" I said, and she rolled her eyes at me. A moment later a different trio came along from the other direction. "More negligent parenting!" This is the way our neighborhood runs -- our kids have some freedom. We all keep an eye out for them. We like it that way. Or at least most of us do.

My anger toward the neighbor who reported me has waned since last week, when I ranted to one of my friends, "I just want to go over to her house and...and...and spit on her porch." (That's me all over: my wildest revenge fantasies run to reckless acts of public expectoration.) I cannot stop wondering what she was thinking, though. What good did she imagine would come out of this for Joe? Because I tell you true: her decision to report a calm and carefully reasoned mothering choice to CPS has caused more stress to my children, and will leave a more enduring mark on them, than any consequence I would ever impose.