west by northwest (by midwest)

city of children no. 2

Yesterday, a woman pushed a stroller into the gym and parked it beside the weight stack for the cable machine.  A toddler followed closely, occasionally standing up on tip toe to peer over the handle of the carriage and make faces at his baby brother or sister.  I never was very good at working up the “right” kinds of coos and smiles, so I drew an imaginary perimeter around the baby and refused to cross the line, even though I really wanted to use the cable machine.

This never would have happened in Portland, where the city keeps children - and parents - “in their place” by design (and I do mean “in their place” as critique, not praise).  I do not mean to suggest that Portland dislikes children. There are plenty of kid-oriented parks, boutiques, toy stores, and even social groups.  But Portland is not exactly a kid city, either.  You notice it right away: very few kids at the restaurants, not many children in the downtown, lots of young designers and artists with no strollers in tow.  You are more likely to spot a doggy daycare in some areas than one for actual, human children.

Just look a the layout of most Portland restaurants: small tables, two chairs pushed neatly across from one another, candle or floral centerpieces, no room for a high chair, no children’s menu on display, no play area.  I remember it made local headlines when a cafe in the Pearl created a play space - think McDonald’s playground, minus the grubby tubes - for kids.  Within a few short weeks, the place became a hub for parents who longed to reclaim their spaces in the cafe culture.  When it flooded due to a pipe leak, parents waited anxiously for the space to reopen. They felt left out, cut off again from the mainstream.

Even the kid boutiques in Portland feel like they are designed for adults, with $100 jeans and $50 t-shirts, stuffed animals too expensive to imagine even one drop of drool staining the plush fur, and assorted “intellectual” toys that appeal to all those young designer couples as a way to show off their smart kids and “anti-family” aesthetic. I could never imagine a toddler behaving in these boutiques as I once did in the local K-Mart: hiding under clothing racks, knocking over displays and end-caps as I raced after my sister, pestering adults, and stamping my germy prints all over formerly pristine glass.  In Portland, kids seemed outrageously well behaved inside those fancy downtown stores, little lords and ladies in designer pants and eco-conscious diapers.

Part of me loves that this Salt Lake City mother felt comfortable bringing her kids to the gym; after all, how else would she be able to squeeze in a workout?  No shelling out money for a babysitter.  No rearranging her schedule.

Another part of me feels squirmy and uncomfortable imagining another encounter.  I have never been comfortable with kids, and much to the horror of my in-laws, do not want my own.  But this is something else, something deeper - less about my discomfort with kids and more about my discomfort with the lack of compartmentalization here, the lack of clear boundaries between spaces.  Here in Salt Lake City, there are no lines in the sand when it comes to children, and after nine years in Portland, it is hard to adjust.   I plan to explore this further in future posts.