9.17.10: It's sad to think

Rex and I go to the park every day. Usually the various parks we visited are inhabited by other young mothers with one or two kids and one on the way.

"Ah, he's cute. How old is he?"

"He's 18 months, or just about. How old is your little guy? He's pretty cute."

And the niceties continue for a few minutes. Sometimes the other moms and I come to be great friends before Rex needs to hurry home for nap.

The park is like a little secret world of moms where it's ok to ask complete strangers the names and ages of their children; how long they had to try to get pregnant; or other such very inappropriate questions. Moms, especially Mormon moms in Provo, have a connection. We know what it's like to fight a toddler to sit still in church, to be highly educated but spend most of the day wiping booger noses and cleaning toilets. The park is our little sanctuary and escape from the four walls of the un-air conditioned house.

But every once in a while a dad comes to the park.

The Mormon dads, who have a few hours out of class and are kind enough to relieve their wives for a few minutes, keep mostly to themselves. They sense that they are outsiders in our little area. They don't belong. They can't relate. And they definately can't ask or answer the types of deep probing questions that moms can.

But not all of the dads are Mormon dads.

These dads are unemployed or underemployed un-kosherly employed so that they have time to come to park. They wear cheap, baggy clothes with holes. They even (gasp) have tattoos. By any account, I would expect these men to swear and curse and begrudge the time they are forced to spent with their children when they would rather be home watching the game and putting back a cold one. But while the moms are busy talking about the latest sleep book and their kids hang wildly from the play set, these dads are "Hey buddy! You look good up there buddy. Good job buddy. You know I love you buddy." They are completely focused on their little buddies and encouraging them and reminding them how much they are loved. These dads do talk to the moms. They are afraid of the weird questions or maybe they are just oblivious to taboos of talking to us. When these dads do talk to us, it's only to tell us how much they love their kids and look forward to spending more time with them.

I'm talking about 2 specific dads here.

One I swear was in the Italian mob and the other was just a loser. But holy cow did they love their boys.

It's sad to think that their sons will be failures and losers just like them. Based on their low socio-economic status and their parents' lack of education, these little buddies chances of success in life are abysmal.

People like to think that these kids are failing because their parents' don't care about them or about school, but they do. These parents care. These dads care. They care a lot. And still their kids are more than likely to fail.

And so it's sad to think that the kids are failing because the system is failing them.

I'll let you know what the solution is when it comes to me in a fantastical dream.