Children
are something of a mystery to me. This is coming from a camp
counselor of 3 summers. The more time I spend with them, the less I
understand them. In a society that so highly values familial ties and
generational continuity, such as Israel, one is expected to know
about children. And not only to know what to do with them, but to
actually like them. Especially as a female above the age of bat
mitzvah.
Anyone
who knows me, knows that I am not exactly the maternal type. I never
had any younger siblings or cousins and admit freely that I know
nothing about child rearing. As a teenager, I would get calls from
young parents who were referred to me through friends, asking me if I
wanted to babysit. I don't know why my friends referred me. Or why we
stayed friends after that. Probably a mother gorilla would
have done a better job than me as a child-minder. And after an
unfortunate incident with a prank 911 call and a visit from the
police, I stopped taking babysitting jobs if the children were
conscious. I would only babysit if the kids were already asleep.
Basically I was only there to fight off any would-be house burglars,
or call the fire dept. if I smelled smoke. And frankly, I would
rather attempt to fight off a burglar than be forced to entertain 6
year olds for 3 hours.
Here in
Israel, people are even more trusting of strangers with their
children. I was waiting in the Jerusalem bus station with my mother
one day, waiting to get on the bus to Tel Aviv, and a woman shoved
her baby into my hands and said, “hey, could you hold him for a
moment?” while she folded up the stroller to put in the baggage
compartment. I was holding the baby as if it was an explosive device,
somewhat horrified, until my mother informed me that you have to
support the head. I was like, “the head? Which side is that?!” It
turns out I've been putting the diaper on the wrong side of the baby
for 26 years. Just kidding- I don't do diapers.
Or,
considering how ill behaved most Israeli children are, parents know
that if their kids were ever kidnapped, an hour later the kidnapper
would have crawled into the police station, bloody, broken and
deranged, begging to give the them back. It's also entirely possible
that some parents just wouldn't mind all that much.
Case in
point: One day I was standing on the sidewalk minding my own
business, when a 5 year old boy ran up to me, kicked me in the shins
and ran off. I yelled, “hey! What was that for?!” as he ran away
and his parents, who were standing right there not paying any
attention whatsoever to their own offspring, turned to look at me as
if I was off my rocker. Like I wasn't the victim in the story.
It
always amazes me how much trouble kids can get into if you don't
watch them every single second of the day. You turn your back to say
hello to someone and when you turn around, the kid has ripped up a
bunch of cardboard boxes and used them to start a forest fire. One
day, I was watching a little Ethiopian kid running around with a
plastic arm in his hands. His father found him, yelled “what are
you doing?!”, found the mannequin that was minus one limb, stuck
the arm behind it, looked around furtively, and then grabbed the
kid's hand and hurried away. Another time, my mother and I were
taking a shabbat walk, when we encountered a man reprimanding a bush.
Obviously we stopped to watch, curious about any possible outcome of
this conversation, when suddenly the man reached in and pulled out an
8 year old. That was the one thing we were not expecting. To this
day, neither of us can figure out how he got in there.
A
Moroccan jewelery once decided to “read my palm.” He informed me
that I would have a long life and many children. I just gave him a
look horror. He then offered to read my tea leaves, but I declined.
He gave me a knowing look and said, “it's ok, many women are afraid
of knowing their futures.” Well certainly, if it involves that many
children.
I
declare with out any shame whatsoever- I don't like children. And
I've come up with a line of defense against being shown baby
pictures. I keep photos of my cats on my phone, and if anyone pulls
out pictures of their kids, or nieces and nephews, or cousins, etc.,
I pull out the pictures of my cats and say, “oh good! When you're
done showing me pictures of your baby, I'll show you pictures of my
cats!” They generally sidle away and mumble something about being
busy, maybe later. Of course if they're cat lovers, I'm stuck.
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