I’ve always enjoyed the idea of a home that is just big enough to squeeze us all in. Yes, our boys are getting bigger but down the line we could remodel the basement and give ourselves a few more feet of space. Yes the pandemic showed us how small our home could be and how much more often we were bumping into each other but a pandemic won’t be forever, right? Yes our yard seems to only grow smaller each year our boys grow older, but…
A few weeks ago a neighbor waved me outside. We feel a strong connection to many of our neighbors but this particular neighbor isn’t one I see often. She and I connected earlier when she was pregnant with her second and I was pregnant with our third but the pandemic changed things. It changed all of us. And she and I grew to a friendship where we would wave to each other or offer a head nod as we passed each other by on our shared street. After all, Covid is passed in the air by droplets passed in the air and all of us had different risk tolerances for the unknown.
I was delighted and confused to get a wave from her so I brushed off my hands, freeing myself from dinner prep, and met her outside.
“Hey!” I said, “how are you?”
I kept my distance, she kept hers.
“Kate,” she said, “I just talked to your boys and need to talk with you as well.”
Her tone sent a slap of cold against my chest. It was a summer day but I have heard her tone in other’s before. It’s a tone of apprehension, mixed with judgment. She was a mother, I am a mother, but she is a mother who works for Child Protective Services and I am a mother who stays at home with her children and writes on the side.
“Your boys can’t do what they’ve been doing.”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
My confusion was authentic but the slice of dread grew deeper. My boys had started a business with their buddy called Sweep Incorporated. Earlier that day my oldest even created t-shirts to further advertise their business. Whistling away he wrote Boss at the top of his shirt and Sweep Inc. on the back. Later, his younger brother ran in and asked for a white shirt as well and my oldest wrote Sweep Inc. on the back of his shirt but Staff on the front.
Their business had developed over months and my husband and I cautiously supported it. Since our older two boys are eight and six we monitored where they went. We practiced crossing the street together. We checked in with neighbors to make sure this wasn’t a business they found annoying or frustrating. It was a process.
“We love your boys,” more than a few neighbors said.
The business started when a neighbor offered them $10 to sweep her front walk and evolved into more and more neighbors offering quarters and contracts with expectations tied to the money. The business and the way the neighbors embraced my boys and helped teach them was exactly what I had dreamed of – a community raising my boys with us.
The wave of Covid racing through the world almost threatened to ruin my dreams. None of the children were allowed to play together, and though my boys returned to school in person in the fall of 2021 I longed for some semblance of normal to return to our neighborhood.
Then the business began, and I thought we were finally reclaiming that sense of neighborliness we had lost. Until now.
“Your oldest can run around the neighborhood like he is because he’s 8, but their buddy and your middle are too young. They need to have an adult monitoring them.”
In my pause I tried to understand what she was saying.
“But,” I said, “they are monitored. I’m inside cooking but I pop out from time to time and the neighbors all know my boys and look after them too.”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said, “You, their parent and their guardian need to be out there with them, wherever they are.”
“Mary,” I said, “they are on our block. They can’t go anywhere else and they know that. They have each other and look after each other and I pop in and out all the time.”
“Sorry,” she said, “but I either have to address this with you or report it.”
It was a thud in my chest that exploded. The confusion evaporated and I finally understood what she was trying to tell me.
What you are doing – is wrong.
“We are good parents,” I said, my words tripping over each other.
“Of course you are,” she said, “I’m just explaining that what you’re doing isn’t within the guidelines and you could be reported to CPS.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said, “Mary, you know my boys. You know my husband and I as parents. Do you really think we would put our boys in danger?”
“I don’t,” she said, “but what I am saying is according to the rules your middle child and the neighbor child are too young to run around outside without direct supervision.”
I saw the line, the wall blocking the ray of sunlight between the two of us. Her youngest son toddled back and forth on his bike. I noticed how close he stayed. I blinked against the shivering leaves of the trees, raised my hand to shield my eyes from all the light and caught sight of my boys, three houses away from me sweeping another neighbors front walkway.
“So what you’re telling me,” I said, “Is I need to be standing right next to my boys anytime they are outside on someone else’s yard.”
She nodded.
“I’ve even gotten calls from people who see a three year old running outside on their front yard without a parent in view.”
It was another punch to the gut. Like someone was firing shots at me but no gun in sight. Invisible bullets striking me one after another.
My three year old loves to run outside without me monitoring him. Again, another process that evolved over the course of the pandemic. I would watch him from inside as I cooked dinner and remind him of his boundaries. Sometimes he would stray to far and I would walk him back home, tell him again of the rules and we would practice again in a week but in the meantime he couldn’t be outside without me or his dad. Overtime he learned and my trust grew.
I thought this is what parenting was supposed to be? I rambled to Mary about my beliefs and what I had learned from ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) classes over the years.
“Our job as parents is to help them build confidence, independence…”
And she responded about guidelines, rules, and regulations. “Just doing her job.”
“Boys!” I called.
They looked up at me and didn’t move toward me immediately.
“Boys!”
I could feel my voice strangulating itself. Anger. Pain. Too many shots.
“Come here please!”
My oldest said something to the other two then made his way to me.
“Is this about what Mary said?”
He said when he reached me.
“Yes,” I said, “I didn’t know that what you are doing isn’t legal.”
“So we’re criminals?” he said.
My heart exploded again, I gasped and looked into his eyes.
These children had already experienced friends being yanked from them, school switched to online and then masked, handwashing stations at the front doors of their schools, and so many other curve balls. The outrage at taking yet another thing they created and were excited about enveloped me.
“No, you are fine. She is saying that we as parents need to be watching you. She is saying we, the parents, are in the wrong. You have done nothing wrong.”
“But we’ve been doing this for months!” he said.
“I know,” I said, “I didn’t know. Your dad didn’t know. When you know better, you do better.”
I tried to smile. I imagine it looked like a half moon pulled across my face.
“Our business is over,” his eyes brimmed with tears, “ruined.”
“No,” I said, “she didn’t say that. She just said we need to do it a different way. We will figure it out. We can make a plan. Maybe we could find special times when we can make sure your dad or I or your buddy’s parents can watch you.”
“No!” he said, “That isn’t the same. That isn’t how we wanted to run our business. We wanted to do it ourselves. We can Mom, you know we can! If you’re there it’s just different.”
He dropped his broom on the sidewalk and yelled across the way to his “staff.”
“It’s over!”
Then he raced inside and slammed the door.
I looked at the broom on the sidewalk, then glanced across the way at the two boys who are too young to be outside without an adult near them.
My boys aren’t perfect. My husband and I are far from perfect parents. We fail time and time again and we feel we are learning every minute of every day.
“You’ve made me second guess our parenting,” I texted Mary later.
“You guys are wonderful parents,” she responded.
My middle and their neighbor buddy began to walk toward me. I watched as the two of them looked both ways before they crossed the street then raced across the road as if a car could come by any minute.
“What’s going on Mom?” My middle asked.
I shook my head.
“Honestly, I just don’t know.”
It was the trigger. Or maybe it was the shot to the gut that made me bluff to my husband.
“We need to move.”
And friends we’ve known for decades and have raised children of their own elevated the bluff.
“You will forever second guess your parenting and adapt your parenting to meet this woman’s expectation if you stay in that neighborhood.”
My husband took a moment to search for homes and in that moment found one that met all of his expectations. I was shocked.
“I was just venting,” I said, “we have so many neighbors we love and who support us.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I didn’t expect to find anything but the home…I think we should at least check it out.”
And the home was beautiful. The space it allowed us was refreshing in a way I hadn’t expected. I started to envision backyard bonfires and new friendships with kids who ran up and down the neighborhood and seemed to have parents who weren’t so different from ourselves.
We talked with parents at the nearby park and a dad shared how he gave his son a walkie talkie so he could ride his bike to a friend’s house a block away by himself.
“How old is your son?” I asked.
“Seven,” he said.
I glanced at my husband, a smile shared between the two of us.
I wonder what Mary would say about that.
Embracing Next 