Dearest C,

I hate to be a snitch, especially since I know your beloved Mama occasionally reads our correspondence, but I think it’s important you be made aware of certain grandmotherly shortcomings during your latest absence from the family home.  Reluctant as I am to be the bearer of bad news, dear C, rumor has it that while you and hubby were frolicking in the surf, Cancun-side, last week, your eleven year-old was spotted riding a bike, sans helmet, in the mean streets of Chevy Chase.  Not only that, after committing the rookie mistake of allowing your offspring to accompany her to the supermarket, Grandma blithely ‘fessed up to caving in to their incessant demands for what I believe is colloquially known as junk food, resulting in a veritable orgy of Oreo and donut-dunking at your house – and not just while I was there.

Whatever next, I hear you ask?  Non-organic cereal for breakfast?  Television after school?  The upper middle-classes of Northwest Washington are reeling at the thought.

It used to be that my parents thought nothing of letting us attach our younger sister to the toaster, or practice jump rope on the underpass before tea….Those were the days!  But times have changed, and behavior that was considered perfectly acceptable nearly thirty (OK, forty) years ago would have you thrown in Abu Graib now, with Human Rights Watch electing to throw away the key.

The only reason I tell you all this, dear C, is not to get Grandma in trouble, or even to suggest she change her evil ways.  Simply, I want to provide you with a  negotiating chip next time she begs off babysitting for the little ‘uns (‘Come, or I’ll tell the Feds!’).  That, and to provide you with a little comeback next time she dares to criticize your mothering techniques.

Faithfully,

P.

P,

Although I truly believe your witty words were intended to make the larger point that our parenting standards have become, in this generation, quite insufferable, I must, as usual, point out the folly of your lazy, I do mean laid back, ways.  If we as mothers who used to run something other than a household don’t take our charges seriously, who can imagine what harm may follow?  Of course, less vigilance may only result in the slightly inebriated state favored by most stay-at-home mothers I knew as a child, and since I still strongly favor this charmed if hazy approach, I’m loathe to suggest another way.  However, as a card-carrying member of the independent school parent alliance, I must at least pretend to make the grade.

Although it’s never clearly stated, it’s usually very easy to discern whether you’re one of us, oops, I mean them.  How many regularly scheduled extra-curriculars are enjoyed by the cherubs, P?  Fewer than fluent mastery of at least one other language and instrument may suggest your aspiration to private school peers are moot.  In addition, it helps to schedule at least one successful playdate every week in which traits such as sharing, kindness and appropriate fluency in competitive game playing may be displayed.  I’m sorry to reveal that throwing a bag of chips in the basement while Sponge Bob chants various mantras at the neighborhood masses doesn’t count.

Finally, although you may feel slightly patronized by today’s standards, you must never forget it all has very little to do with the children.  If not for the full life created by shopping, playing and organizing all things organic, what would we, I mean they, do?  We may be forced back into the corporate world we left–resulting in the real equalizing of the sexes in our society.  What then would we have to whine about?  Now that, my friend, is most frightening indeed.

Faithfully,

C.