It was not in the baking heat of Phoenix, but in the boiling sauna of Atlanta in July, that I stuck myself in a sticky situation. A man was shouting “Ma’am, Ma’am” and I turned immediately to accept my fate: guilty as charged. But my niece and I were going to miss the dolphin show which started in 7 minutes so I would need to resolve this quickly.
My brother-in-law had instructed me to park at the Atlanta Mission and my sister had told me to pay for parking, that that would be easier. Between easier and free, there is no debate. I drove up to the aquarium after braving the nonsensical traffic of mid-day downtown Atlanta. (The ATL baseball team is actually called The Braves because Atlanta traffic requires bravery). I found a spot in a fenced lot at The Mission, ignoring the tow-away signs, but hey, if it works for my sister and Brother-In-Law, I eased into one of the open spots and announced to Savannah (who is 2.5 years old and obsessed with Mommy, my sister), “We’re Going to the Dolphin Show!” She parroted in her 2-year-old accent “We’re going to da Doffin Show!” I’d seen my sister do this a million times, talk to the back of the car without making eye contact with her captive audience, a 2 and 4-year old, throwing her voice and trusting that they were listening, while pushing the car in park, grabbing the phone, the bag, then pushing a button to open the sliding doors.
I was bracing myself for Savannah to unravel at any moment because when I suggested we go to the Dolphin Show, I thought I would be accompanying my sister and my niece, not taking her there by myself. I am an expert babysitter and educator, but I’ve learned that all bets are off when it’s your sister’s kid. I can’t handle their tears, they rip me in half. So I pressed the power door button, open sesame, which revealed a child staring at me, constrained in a city of seatbelts, screaming or grinning but rarely in-between, that child banking on me getting them to the destination, in the traffic, in the heat, with the snacks, the water, the lovey, the diapers (they never ask for those), the tickets, the stroller, the shoes (because she takes them off sometimes), the sunscreen if needed, the keys to the van, the purse if I remember it, and in this case, all in 7 minutes. Thankfully Savannah wasn’t crying, just calmly sucking her thumb. I furnished the stroller from the back, released Savannah from the seatbelt, and announced again “We’re Going to the Dolphin Show!” and she said, with a voice box slightly jostled by my arm around her waist hugging her lungs, “We’re going to da Doffin Show!” I needed to remember my purse with my phone (which had the link with the tickets), her bag of stuff, her lovey, and, thankfully both shoes were on, as I pulled the straps around her arms, I looked down and saw the buckle on the stroller.
The buckle.
To say I was paralyzed by the buckle would be absolutely dramatic, but to say I was unaffected by it would be a lie.
How dare the world. This was one task too many, and I was already over-tasked. And to think for years, generations, centuries, we’ve expected women to do all of this without even acknowledging that they were doing it. Because it’s not work if it’s the woman’s responsibility, right? Thankfully there’s been a shift in US society (and I say U.S. because I can’t speak for the other societies, though shifted they may have) in which men are taking on more parenting tasks in the day-in and day-out. Fathers are buckling these buckles alongside the women more, and there are fathers doing it sans women, too.
But I looked at the buckle, 7 minutes to showtime, boiling in the humidity of southern summer, and I wanted to grab a sign and go on demonstration on the Atlanta street corner: NO MORE BUCKLES. NO MORE. FREE THE CHILDREN. But I swallowed my inner revolt because I’d been dreaming of this moment for a year, the moment I got to see Savannah at the dolphin show.
So I buckled it, I snapped the tops of the edges into the buckle and began to push the stroller (“Who am I? Pushing a stroller?” I didn’t recognize myself. Sounds like no big deal, right? But it feels super weird when it isn’t your life) “Okay Savannah” I cooed to keep her calm, “We’re almost to The Dolphin Show!” when I heard “Ma’am, Ma’am!” and I turned to accept my fate. I knew this parking lot was too good to be true. I had buckled and unbuckled, picked up and secured a 30-pound child, grabbed her bag, my purse, checked for two shoes and lovey and even remembered to lock the damn car AND have the keys in my purse but.. I was parking in a lot that was for a homeless mission, not the affluent folks who wanted to spend a small fortune to observe the animals in captivity because it’s a thrill a minute at the dolphin show!
“Yes sir” I turned.
“Where are you going?” He asked. I grimaced. I had to hear myself say “The Dolphin Show” to this man. So instead, I said:
“I’m sorry. My sister told me to park here, I’m from out of town” I’m sure he didn’t believe me, which I could understand.
“Okay… who’s your sister?”
“I could tell you but I don’t think you know her. Adrienne” (AKA my hero 7 times over because she does all of this, sometimes alone, every time she wants to get out of the house with TWO small, oft-screaming humans?)
“I apologize, ma’am” he took a breath.
“No you don’t have to, it’s my fault.”
“What car is yours?” He asked.
“The show is in 6 minutes, but I think I have time” I said.. “if you want me to move my car.”
“No, just tell me so I can ensure it doesn’t get towed.”
“The silver Sienna” I said. He made me say “The Silver Sienna” which was just another set of words I didn’t think I’d associate myself with.
“Okay” he opened and closed his fist officially in a gesture of good faith, the kind of faith I remember from the South. “God Bless You” I wanted to say in a nod to the Christian Act of Kindness allowing this overwhelmed out-of-town Aunt to take her niece to the dolphin show.
And I continued pushing the stroller. I pressed the pedestrian crossing button and we waited at the sidewalk for the light to turn as the moments ticked past. I pressed nervously on my watch to see the time, then when we crossed and entered the aquarium, I didn’t see where to scan my ticket. Once we strolled in, then, where was the dolphin show? I couldn’t find the show. But we followed the steady stream of strollers to The Dolphin Show and I just wanted Savannah to enjoy it. I just wanted to get inside. And as we walked up, I noticed a long line of abandoned strollers so I asked the woman “Do we just leave our strollers here?” Obviously I was not a parent. “Yes ma’am” she said. So I left it there, trying not to imagine what life would be like if for some reason that stroller was gone when I returned. I unbuckled Savannah and perched her on my ambulating hip, two minutes ’til showtime, rushing to the auditorium.
And then we walked into The Dolphin Show. Chris, my brother-in-law, had warned me, “the place is going to be packed because this is a big travel week, apparently… So get ready for sensory overload.” I thought that I was sensory overloaded before I even walked in from the sun and the parking heist but we walked in and looked all the way up. All the seats were occupied except for the ones labeled “Splash Zone.”
Oh, no.
Now I could get splashed no problem, soaked, who the hell cares? but I’ve watched this 2.5-year-old melt into sobs over a missing toy. How would she respond to getting soaked at the dolphin show? No, it would be okay. If it were 4-year-old Harrison, I’d be more concerned. Anyway what choice did we have? I asked if we could scoot by the woman at the end of the row, just like how I do when I board a Southwest flight and ask for the middle seat so I can sit toward the front. She nodded and windshield-wiped her knees to the side, and we scooted in.
This is America. Getting your seat to the gahdam dolphin show on time.
For the first time in 20 minutes, I exhaled. I took in the lights and tried to count the dolphins swimming around the massive tank. Children like counting things, right?
“Look, Savannah, 5 dolphins!” Then, “Savannah, we might get splashed” I warned her. She sat next to me but she looked so small there, so helpless, in that plastic seat designed for adults. Her head didn’t even crest the top of the seat.
What did Adrienne do? Did she pick her up or did she prefer to experience it on her own? So I asked: “Do you want to sit in my lap?” She didn’t say anything. She looked slightly overwhelmed, her thumb securely applied to her mouth. If I still sucked my thumb, I would have absolutely been doing so in that moment.
So I put my arms out and asked again “Want to sit in my lap?” And I think she opened her arms to me just slightly and I think I needed her to sit on my lap more than she needed me. I put my arms around her, and kept peering around her face to check her expression, waiting to see if she might start screaming “I want my MAHHHMYYYYY” just any dolphin second.
As the music played and the lights glazed over us, childless aunt with child niece looking at the dolphins, I thought about that buckle. What had overwhelmed me about it?
It was just.. It took too much time to put it together, and it didn’t look like it even made sense. Press a button here and press down on this clip and press up on that clip, like it was a Rubik’s cube. And I understood it all. I understood the need for safety and the puzzle it had to be to keep the kid from unclipping it, but I could only think of multiplication in that moment. This buckle times two children? Or times three or four for some families? Times every time you want to see the dolphins?
And I thought, this is what we do for children. We want them to enjoy their lives and we’d do anything for that to happen. But this is also why I don’t want to be a parent. I can’t give everything of myself every day to little people who need me because, well, I don’t want to. And if I die alone, maybe someone else will be buckling me in and out of things like my mom did when I was young. And it won’t be a family member, it will be some random underpaid worker who I will try to charm into liking me if I haven’t lost my mind. And I know that’s not how nature ever intended it. But I know that nature also did not intend for me to have a mental breakdown, which I know beyond knowing, would be ignnited in me the second my own flesh and blood was wandering around outside my body.
The show started. Gosh, dolphins are majestic. And the funny thing was they looked so happy. Which was the point, right? But still, it’s called a “show.” They must not be happy. Was I the only pessimistic over-thinker in the audience trying to read the mood of animals as they swam for fish. We counted the dolphins as I bounced Savannah up and down on my knee, hoping she was still doing okay. At one point, I lifted my hands from her middle to take a picture but she quickly pulled them back down around her, like my hands were a buckle she needed. And I was happy, thrilled, to be that buckle. The thunder effects started and they opened up the ceiling to let it “rain” on the dolphin pool. Okay, this show was really cool! The trainers were so cheesy, (you could tell they were trainers more than actors), and that was fine with me. But soon it was time to get splashed… and as the fin came toward us, splashing out at the audience one section at a time, I held my breath and tried to cover up as much of Savannah as I could. Then it was upon us, the splash! And after we got splashed, I looked at her face to make sure she wasn’t unraveling in tears. Thank goodness, she looked exactly the same, her thumb in her mouth, not smiling or crying, entirely neutral.
I wiped the water off her legs with my dress. I think I would do anything for Savannah.
We left, myself so blissfully happy that we’d made it, and we wandered the maze of the aquarium for a few minutes. I was mesmerized by the number of strollers, and I could not find the ramp at one point and felt helpless. I just had to carry her down the three steps to see the ramp immediately after. People probably thought I looked ridiculous.
But it was okay, we made it.
