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My Neighbor

 The polar explorers came in two flavors. There were those who were sensible and prepared, like Roald Amundsen. And there were those who made poor choices (and who were later, bizarrely, romanticized)--like Ernest Shackleton.


I live down the road from the Roald Amundsen of parenting.

I love this woman. She considers problems in a steely, pragmatic way. For example, she has required her ADHD kid to take skating lessons. This is not because anyone in the family has expressed an interest in skating--but because skating has physical boundaries, unlike outdoor soccer. The ADHD kid can stray from the lesson--but he can't stray *very* far.

My neighbor has a way of handling filial/parent conflict. "You just have to lie. They want to go to Burger King? Tell them it's closed. They notice cars in the parking lot? It's the painters--using toxic paints to get the dining room ready for springtime....."

(I adopt this tactic perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "Susie," I whisper, as my daughter fingers a necklace she cannot purchase. "We need to leave the store right now, or the village overlords will shut and seal the town gates. We won't be able to travel back home....")

My neighbor evokes thoughts of Walter White--with Walter's quest for total control. I have long felt defeated by Play Doh; I vow to collect the scraps and store them in an airless container, I forget, the scraps harden and become ugly, useless turdlets on the furniture...Rinse and repeat. My neighbor suggests a solution. "There is no Play Doh in my house. None. Not today. Not next week. Never."

I will not become Ernest Shackleton; I will not fall prey to leopard seals.

I listen as my neighbor speaks. I am keeping notes.
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