It?s especially sunny and beautiful on the day that a boy at the local playground shoves my three-year-old in the head.
The sun, in fact, is streaming through the windows of a wood playhouse. I poke my head inside of that playhouse to see my three-year-old standing at the opposite wall, back turned to me. She?s looking out another window. Maybe she?s examining the monkey bars or the yellowing leaves or the grass on the hill. A blond boy stands next to her, same size, three-feet. And bam, he shoves her in the head.
My daughter turns and locks eyes with me. The boy?s mother is fifty feet away, chatting on a bench. The discipline here is mine to dole. I?m categorically conflict-adverse, but I also don?t want my daughter believing that his behaviour is okay. ?Hey,? I say in a voice I?ve spent years trying on like a red tie. Stern. Solid. Authoritative about boundaries. ?Don?t push people?s heads! Keep your hands to yourself!?
The boy looks at me without apology, a closed-mouthed vacant gaze that says: That was mine to do and So there. He walks away.
A month later, a man running for my country?s highest office will make news for bragging that he grabs women?s vaginas without asking. But this is now, in September, on a New England playground in the yellow sun when the leaves are still on the trees.
?That was mean,? a girl beside me says.
?He made a mean choice,? I say, because parents are told to word things this way.
?He wanted to look out the window,? says my daughter. And righ...