My Neighbor

 Parenting is like "Rashomon"; you hear things, and you just have to assume they're untrue.

"We take our child out to restaurants," says my neighbor. "But we don't allow screens. No screens. He is only two years old, I know. But we give him a small toy truck, and he is just fine."

To me, this is like claiming, "I can defy gravity." I have another voice in my ear that says this: "A child can sit at the dinner table for a certain number of minutes. The number exactly matches the number of years the child has been on the planet." So--by that metric--my neighbor is entering, then leaving, the restaurant within a two-minute cycle.

My neighbor goes on to say that he "smuggles" shredded carrots and broccoli into his homemade shrimp-burger patties, and his child then *eats* a patty. But then there's that other voice in my ear, the voice of the therapist who says this: "Not having Twinkies at the breakfast table is a triumph, and it's the only dietary goal that you should be aiming for." Again, which voice am I to listen to?

Finally, my neighbor has strong words about the "au pair" craze. "These au pairs, they are not passionately devoted to caring for your child. They are devoted to finding a spouse in America. I know of one story. The twentysomething *burned* the infant. We're talking about a second degree burn. Then she tried to sweep this under the rug. You've heard of Watergate? Where the cover-up is worse than the crime?"

But there is the *other* voice in my head: "Good childcare exists in the world. Just keep firing people--until you find someone you like."

I see my neighbor in small doses; I have to keep an eye on my own mental health.