Playground Etiquette

The public playground secret code of conduct. Ever heard of it? It exists. I saw it with my very own eyes the other day. I liken it to the guidelines that exist around personal space in a public elevator or the unspoken rules that two male friends adhere to when entering a public restroom at the same time--the one urinal buffer and the pause in conversation until meeting again at the sink.

Sarah and I took our 17-month-old son, Elijah, to a public playground for the first time last Sunday. Sure, I've been to public playgrounds before. In fact, I was the self-crowned king of the monkey bars between the ages of 6 and 9, and my wife claims that she was quite a swinger when she was young. I suggested she find a better way to say that. Well, apparently frequenting public playgrounds as a kid and taking your own kids to playgrounds are two very different things. We were the newbies, and it was quite evident. Now, at this point, I could go into the fact that our son has a very serious heart defect, and that, much to his dismay, he lives 95% of his life inside a boring, little antimicrobial world that we've worked really hard to create. But I won't go there because I think it's better that you maintain an objective opinion of our experience and not rule in our favor by default.

So, here we are, the rookie parents rolling up to the busy playground; our plan was to have a quick picnic lunch and then treat Elijah to some normalcy--something he doesn't often get. The park was crowded, really crowded. A birthday party was in its infant stages (I had to) under the shelter off in the distance. Directly in front of us, the sight of children ages 2 to 12 running here and there, trading giggles and germs like it was their job. I first noticed the stares in our direction as we navigated our stroller packed with cargo down the sidewalk toward our grassy destination. Sure, the stroller was full--we were having a picnic. Was it ideal that we had to carry Elijah because there was too much stuff in the stroller for him to ride? No. Hence the staring. After a fast lunch, we headed up to the swing set, which consisted of two big-kid swings and two toddler swings (you know, the bucket seat with leg holes). After parking our baby U-Haul, we proceeded to pull out the Clorox wipes to try and kill as much bacteria as possible before placing Elijah in the swing. We knew that sanitizing playground equipment in broad daylight was a risky move, but there was nastiness on that swing, and it was our job to annihilate it. The Clorox wipes drew some stares, but not as many as what came next in our little adventure. It was Elijah's first time on a real-deal swing set, so of course we had to take pictures--Smith family style, which is more like a Gerber product photo shoot. Sure, we snapped a few more than we needed to, but the sun provided perfect lighting and the smile on Elijah's face was priceless. As for the man pushing his daughter in the next swing over? Well, he was disgusted. His non-verbals almost said it all, and what they didn't say, his verbals did. Caught up in her mission to get the money shot, Sarah inadvertently stepped in the path of the man's swing zone. There was still plenty of room between Sarah, our camera and his little girl's feet, but not enough for his liking. "Ma'am!", he quipped. And that's all it took. That one word quickly made us realize that, between disinfecting public equipment and our mini-photo shoot, we were way out of line. We simply weren't adhering to the same code of conduct that the other parents were. We were rattled. After a couple more pushes and some retaliatory snapshots, we removed Elijah from the swing and made our way to the slide. Elijah was none too pleased about the abrupt ending to his swinging bliss (the photo with this post says it all). The slide didn't work out, and so we decided to call it a day. We did manage to squeeze in a nice stroll around the park during our stay and that, combined with the enjoyable lunch was enough to make us return someday. Yes, we'll have the Clorox Wipes and the camera with us the next time because we're the Smiths, and that's what we do. As for acknowledging and adhering to the parental code of conduct, we'll see how that goes.