Rotten Kids in Suburbia

In the world of Suburbia, we believe that the best neighbors are the ones we rarely see. Suburbia is designed for maximum privacy and a minimum of interaction. I'm generally quite comfortable with this setup, but in recent years, as I've learned that suburban sprawl is not only strangling our planet, but also that it seems to stifle the tribalism that's encoded into our human DNA, I've had to imagine myself living in a village setting; one in which a mishmash of families, commerce, and industry coexist; a setting in which people live and work in close proximity to each other, and therefore more readily deal with each other's differences and quirks.

When I consider village life, my greatest fear is that of chaos; of the capriciousness and noise that often accompanies such a life. As a life-long suburbanite, I find comfort in my relative anonymity and autonomy. I've been conditioned to consider a knock at my door as an annoyance and an interruption, rather than an opportunity to strengthen my community ties. Having entrenched myself in such comportment, I struggle to comprehend the upside to a different lifestyle; a village existence which contains a strong sense of community, of mutual responsibility and protection. This does not exist in Suburbia, where individualism is a sacrament.

As a mother, my greatest hope for my daughter is that she'll be happy; I've worked very hard to help her identify her own feelings, and interpret the feelings of others. I want her to fulfill her role in society, I want her to have an undeniable sense of herself so that she meets her future with adeptness and confidence. Part of this process is allowing her to socialize with other children. In Suburbia, that means that we arrange play-dates, often allowing neighborhood children into our own homes. Although there are a few parents on my block who seem to simply turn their kids loose into the neighborhood and let them play until supper time, most parents, myself included, prefer that their child play within the bounds of their own property. I simply don't trust other parents, nor do many of my neighbors. As a result, the play dates often take place at one house or another, but certainly not both. This practice seems only to further isolate us as neighbors. Does this mindset perpetuate in our children the same suburban stand-offishness that we have adopted?

In my neighborhood, there is the usual variety of children of all ages and temperaments, and I've found that some children are delightful, some are surly and self-important, while others are manipulative little tyrants. One girl, Jasmine, is of the third variety. She is being raised by her grandparents, has only a sketchy relationship with her own mother, and is horribly obnoxious. One afternoon she came over to play with Connie, but Jasmine also wanted me to join in the play. When I refused, Jasmine drew a picture on the easel of Connie strangling me. When I confronted her, she said it was just a joke; but I was deeply disturbed.

After sending Jasmine home, I considered talking to her grandparents, but I didn't, because of some strange, unwritten Suburban rule that states that parents must not interfere in the parenting of other children. Instead, I've told Connie that Jasmine is no longer allowed to come over and play. I wonder how that scene would have differed if it had occurred in a village setting; indeed, it may not have occurred at all, because in a village, all adults may take responsibility for all children, regardless of who the child belongs to. Would I have felt more comfortable marching Jasmine over to her grandparents' home? Or would I have instead felt obligated to play with Jasmine and Connie, thereby avoiding Jasmine's resentment? Or, perhaps Jasmine's biological parents would have been shamed by the "tribe" to actually take responsibility for their own child, which in turn would have helped Jasmine become a much more pleasant person to begin with? These questions are worthy of my study. What I'm certain of is that there are no easy answers to these questions, so my study will be appropriately detailed.