Find out what it means to me

Sometimes I get a glimpse of what could have been and resolve that it never will be.

After brunch with Luis and Jenn & Steve and their two pugs Ollie and Stella at Rose Water, we stopped by the real estate office where Jenn and Luis work before heading over to Prospect Park. Their coworker M. was at the office with her 2-year-old daughter, O. O. is a miniature spitfire, wild curly hair framing her cherubic face. As soon as O. saw Ollie and Stella she came running up to them and tried to tackle them as if they were moving toys. I held Ollie's lead and watched disapprovingly as O. pounced on the hapless Stella, trying to grab her by the neck as her mother obliviously chatted on the phone with a client. "I couldn't get a babysitter today," she said apologetically. No wonder. O. makes Patty McCormack look like The Good Seed.

Like a monkey, O. began climbing up a shelving unit and pulled down a plastic tray, which she threw on the floor. "Bad doggie!" she yelled at the bewildered Stella, who was nowhere near the scene of the crime. Without warning she stood in the center of the room and let out a high-pitched scream as though someone had just beaten her. Her mother scowled but said nothing. I watched O. stonily as she jumped to the floor while M. halfheartedly scolded her. Intently and expressionlessly, she marched over to me and impudently tried to yank Ollie's leash from me. I held on tight and fixed my eyes on her as she fixed her eyes on mine. "I want the doggie!" she shrieked. I looked at her icily, not saying a word, not taking my eyes off hers. Then I felt her tiny fingers digging into mine, determined to pry the leash from my hand. "I want the doggie!" she cried again. In my creepiest Hannibal Lecter voice I said calmly, "No." I stared at her as I would an animal, trying to break her.

At that instant I felt nauseated by the situation. Here I was engaging in a battle of wills with a 2-year-old who is in no way related to me. For the past 2 years we've all watched M. fail miserably as a parent because she wants O. to be her friend. So much else in M.'s life has turned out badly--an abusive fiance, ambivalent family members, an irreparable blowup with her best friend. O. is all she has, all that she can count on. She knows she's set up a toxic situation with O., but she's afraid of the consequences of putting her foot down.

O. continued tugging on the leash and digging her nails into my flesh and pouting, and I continued staring at her wordlessly as I held the leash tighter. I was determined to not let go. A friend of mine who's a mother once told me that the best way to deal with a difficult child is silence, because the child doesn't know how to interpret that reaction. Finally realizing there was another dog in the room that she could get hold of, O. let go of my hand and chased Stella across the floor. Everyone else in the office acted like nothing was happening. Yet I was the one who felt like the lunatic.

When I left the office with Jenn & Steve, my heart was pounding and I was seething, mostly from my reaction but also from M.'s dysfunctional parenting.

"I just don't see how I could be a parent," I said. "If I ever had a child like O., one of us would end up dead."

"But you would never have a child like her," Jenn said.

"How do you know?" I said. "You don't get to pick your child's personality. What if we adopted?"

"But you wouldn't allow that kind of behavior," Steve said.

"Still, it's the luck of the draw. I believe our personalities are just as imprinted in our genes as our hair and eye color."

"No, sweetie, I'm telling you. You'd be a great parent," Jenn said, rubbing my shoulder.

Jenn's words were little consolation. It was not O.'s behavior that cemented my decision to never be a parent: it was my reaction to O.'s behavior. Yet on some level I was envious of and awed by The Bad Seed because her mother let her get away with shit I could never have dreamed of. All my father had to do was give me The Look from across the room and I cowered in fear. But O. and her mother are not an isolated case. I've met a lot of other children like O., spoiled by parents who can't (and won't) say no, who don't want to be the bad guy, who are terrified their kids won't like them.

Sure, my dad hit me. He was an emotionally distant alcoholic unable to cope with his repressed homosexuality, but I don't hate him. I don't think he was a monster. And I think I turned out OK. I may not have loved my father, but at least I respected him.