That one child on the playground

Anna Rothenfluh

“Why is your child as stupid as he is small?” That rang in my ears. And also: “Why does your child have the dumbest haircut in the world?” Blonde curls that look suspiciously like a perm and are mangled into micro-bangs at the front of the forehead, then flash boldly over the shoulders at the back.

A mullet in branded jeans. Stefan Effenberg in miniature. Say hello to today’s bully. To the slide bully, the swing terror and tube brute, the boy who will do anything to turn the area into a combat zone in no time.

And of course he can’t do anything, because he’s only four years old.

His revolution starts with a classic. The child goes up the slide and blocks it from the other – usually smaller – children who want to slide correctly. They wait patiently. When he reaches the top, he muddies all over her. Then he yells at her. He comes very close to their faces and lets out a short primal roar, then crawls into the tube, only to come out even wilder.

You can do it.

I still look down at the people sitting in a semicircle around the playground. Who is responsible for this blatant haircut mishap? Where is Edward Scissorhands, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease? Who doesn’t watch what their noble offspring, their golden grandson or the neighbor’s sugary son does that violates the rules on the playground?

And while I spot two suspicious people in the front row, phase 2 begins behind me.

The boy now pushes the little ones off the slide and another almost off the climbing tower.

It’s mine. So the almost shabby thing.

That is not possible.

With my stern face I tell the boy that he is not allowed to do that. That it was dangerous because he could hurt others.

He doesn’t seem to understand. Or he just doesn’t care. My stern face made no impression on him.

“Mommy, I’m going to defend myself now!” says mine.
“Yes,” I say. “Doing.”

Maybe I just gave my kid carte blanche to punch the bully if he gets stupid again. But the Jesus-turning-the-other-cheek formula isn’t exactly practical on a five-foot platform.

A state of emergency applies. And I don’t like that. I don’t like this whole mini-fate society that meets on and under wooden scaffolding to have “fun”. And while the children play upstairs, you are forced to play a completely different game downstairs: observe, assess and intervene if necessary. But when is this given case?

Do I let my offspring climb up there alone or not? Should I reprimand him if he starts the balance parkour from behind? And how do I shit on other children correctly?

Question after question, and they are all answered differently. This glaring gap that sometimes arises between people seems bigger than any Gump the little ones have to make from one play device to another. How I wish I could just disappear into it and wait until my children were old enough to fight their battles on their own.

Instead, I stand there and watch the bully run away and continue on his path of destruction. To top it all off, he spits on the slide. A father sees it too and thinks his own way.

I shout, “Hey, got it?! That’s super scary!”
He is again unimpressed.

Where the hell is this permanently curly mullet vandal’s apathetic grandpa? Where is the mother on the phone with her back to the crime scene? Show yourself, you indifference personified!

Can’t you see how the poor girl is sliding right into your creep’s drool?

Do you not see the long-winded Schlirggen, which remains behind on the green fair as if it is a mockery of all the righteous?

Don’t you see here the symbol of complete disrespect, the purest contempt for everything and everyone?

She sees it. They both see it. mother and grandmother. They must be. With the utmost detective zeal, I combined the real fur sleeping bag that adorns the designer stroller next to it with the brat wearing designer pants.

It’s a competition!

Finally, I honed my matching skills to the point of exhaustion in my son’s puzzle game. You don’t just have to find two identical pairs of images, as with memory, but connections are required, so you have to take the backpack with the canteen and the sand molds and the bowl with it Connect Chübeli.

That fits together.

But no matter how confident I am in my profiling skills, no matter how true my prejudices may be, I cannot simply betray those who are highly suspicious.

After all, I’m Swiss. My eyes have become fists that naturally stay in the pocket – or rather in the eye sockets. It would be even more fun.

I stand there angrily, glaring at them and waiting for relief. Now I’m the one who doesn’t understand. The two women looked with disdain at everything their student did up there. They didn’t even talk to each other. There was not the slightest distraction to disturb her attention. In their eyes, were not all the elements of a crime fulfilled?

Do you think the children will figure it out among themselves? Or do you believe there are enough adults up there already watching them? Do you think spitting is an appropriate form of expression? Have you made a bet on how long it will take before someone takes your child out of circulation? Or has your pain threshold simply not been reached yet and you still need to squirt a little blood?

My friend comes back from shopping. “Chum, give me a treat,” he says.

And we go.