Mother Tongue

Mother Tongue

When my son turned 4, we still lived in Ireland. I invited 10 of his friends from preschool for his party. One by one, the parents arrived at the door and dropped their little darlings off. For the most part they confirmed the pickup time and left, presumably to run errands or just sit in the car and heave a sigh of relief to have packed off their 4-year-old for a couple of hours. I don’t believe anyone so much as left a telephone number.

We moved to San Francisco between my son’s fourth and fifth birthday. I enrolled him in a local preschool exhibiting the best and worst traits of the city. Fabulous organic meals, yoga classes twice weekly, and the kind of superior attitude designed to undermine the confidence of parents.

Moving from Ireland was lonely. I now realize that nobody could understand what I was saying. I had no idea my accent was so strong or my pattern of speech so fast. Friends joke about gathering the family around the answering machine and playing my message over and over, each guessing at what I might have been trying to say. I hardened my t’s and added extra vowels, but it was still difficult to make friends.

When the opportunity arose to invite children to our home to celebrate my son’s birthday, I jumped at the chance. I decided to have the party on the Saturday after his birthday. On Wednesday, I sent invitations in his backpack. A call from the preschool promptly ensued. I had made several big mistakes already.

Apparently, it was quite wrong of me to send the invitations with my son to distribute at school. As we didn’t invite everybody, there were children who did not receive an invitation. Their feelings might have been hurt. In future, I was instructed to secretly issue the invitations to parents only, possibly by skulking around at pickup and assaulting the appropriate parents on their approach to the school’s gates. I should slip them the invitation palm to palm and swear them to secrecy on the matter.

Among the many things I didn’t understand at the time was the fragile nature of these children’s egos. To be more accurate, I didn’t understand how fragile the parents perceived their children’s egos to be. The deadliest sin you can commit as a parent in San Francisco is to damage your child’s self-esteem. In Ireland, stepping on your child’s self-esteem is considered good parenting.

The other mistake was to issue the invitations at such short notice. Three days simply wasn’t enough time for people to consider/decide/schedule their child’s attendance. The way I saw it, it was a 5-year-old’s birthday party. Your kid can come or he can’t. Surely you know on Wednesday whether or not he’s free on Saturday. My son hadn’t been invited to any parties at this point; I had no idea that a month’s notice was customary.

Having braved these rigors, I set about organizing the party. It was to be a simple affair—some supervised games and cake. The night before the party, a mother telephoned. She left a message.

“Willow really wants to come to the party,” she said, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. Can Michelle watch her instead?”

I replayed the message several times. I couldn’t make sense of it. Luckily, Michelle was the one parent I had actually engaged in conversation with. Her son, Hayes, was already a friend to my son. I called her.

“I got the strangest message from Willow’s mom,” I told Michelle. “She says you’re going to watch Willow tomorrow instead of her coming to the party. I didn’t really understand what she was saying.”

Michelle asked me to repeat the message.

“Oh, she just means that she can’t stay at the party, but I’ll be there to keep an eye on Willow.”

What was she talking about? Why would Michelle be there? Was Willow a disturbed child who couldn’t be trusted? Was she going to set fire to the sofa if I didn’t keep a close eye on her? Was she allergic to everything and needed an adult armed with an EpiPen and CPR training to follow her around?

Suddenly, realization dawned.

“The parents are going to stay?” I asked with dread. “The parents are really planning to stay at the party?”

“Oh yes,” said Michelle, quite calmly. “They always stay.”

“Why?” I blurted. “But I have invited 18 children. Will I have up to 36 adults to entertain as well?”

“Wow,” said Michelle, who could barely contain her amusement at both the misunderstanding and my current predicament. “That’s a lot of kids. And parents.”

I do things differently now. I mention my younger child’s impending celebrations in November (her birthday is in May; I don’t want to be accused of springing things on people). I send out Evites followed by a paper invitation. I pretend to care whether or not her friends can make it, as though the absence of any one child would render the whole affair an empty farce. I mark the invitations clearly with DROP OFF ONLY, but I always keep a bottle of white wine in the fridge, just in case.

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Lucy O’Dwyer lives in San Francisco. She is raising two children, a situation that forces her to see the humor in life.

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