I hate playgrounds

My five year old begs me to go to our local playground. When he sees that I’m considering this idea, that it’s not an automatic yes, little tears begin to swell and his bottom lip starts to shake. He is not trying to get his way; he is desperate…

for play, to interact with his peers, to run freely, to climb and jump and push and pull and see what his tiny body is capable of. To learn his limits because he is five and a rowdy boy and this is what children do.

I swallow the burning that is growing in my throat. I push down the disappointment, my anxiety of the future, hello spiral!, the life I thought he would have. I stomach every need to scream and throw things. This is such a small request, and yet.

A playground does not only bring us one step closer to a visit to the ER, it is a slapping reminder that we are other. For three years I have watched parents, mostly mothers, sit on a park bench lost in their phones, in books, in conversation with each other. They look up, every so often, to check on their three, four, five-year-old children. They smile sweetly as their little honeys play together. They may break up an argument, dust off a skinned knee, give a tight squeeze when their child is left out. They speak with a levity I have no concept of. They are unfazed in this setting. It is natural, easy-ish.

I am so jealous.

I am not a park-bench-parent. I am not even a “be careful!”, standing close to the play structure parent. I am closer than a helicopter – I am tick, attached to my child’s shirt, one hand on him at nearly every turn. I am on the play structure, down the slide, holding his legs when he climbs, fixing his knees when he comes out the slide twisted– how did he even manage that position — I am a fixture to his person.

It’s not that I need a break (I do), that I’m tired, (I am). It’s that he is stuck between worlds. Not typical, but not so medically complex that the playground is a mere dream that will never be — he is smack in the middle, riding the line of two separate kingdoms. And I don’t know how to parent in the between.

This is what my five year old, who cannot feel pain, hears when on the playground:

Stop! Be careful! Don’t jump! Stop running. It’s too high, come back down. Now, I said, now. No stop, that’s too hard. Bend down when you go under things. Fix your feet! No, don’t slide that way, always feet first. Sorry buddy, you can’t climb on top of that, or that, or that. Don’t climb without me. You’re going to overheat, you have to stop running. STOPRUNNING-becareful-thisisn’tfunforanyoneletsgohomenow!!!!

We leave in tears, always. His for wanting to stay, and mine for not being able to let him.

Playgrounds are my reminder.
Starting kindergarten is my reminder.
Playdates are my reminder.

Our family exists with the understanding that ‘two things can be true.’ I often think about what I would feel if my son couldn’t even play the game. If he was permanently on the sideline, watching.

Coach can put him in, but with so many parameters, rules, expectations. He’s on the field, but he has footnotes – pages of them. He is restricted. He has limited access because his body knows no limit. And he’s frustrated. And it destroys him.

“Mama, I’m fine! I can do it! I’ll be ok! I promise, mama,” he tells me in rhythm, like it’s a song made just for me, one he plays over and over and over.