My husband just told me about seeing a young woman run out of a building, who was terribly upset, chain-smoking and hysterically ranting on her cell phone. She was a former playmate of my daughter’s.

This description brought back painful memories of my dilemma of whether or not to call Children and Youth Services in an attempt to help what was obviously an abused child.

We met on the playground around the corner from our apartment building when my daughter was about four or five years old. Sometimes, on a cloudy day we’d arrive to find this girl sitting on her mother’s lap with her mother draped over her like a character in a painting from Picasso’s blue period. But my daughter and the girl played well together so I didn’t think much of it.

But sometimes when we were pushing our daughters on the swing, she’d talk obsessively about Princess Diana as if she was a personal friend of hers and I began to get a sense that something was off. She was pretty convincing though (and my mother also talked obsessively about Princess Diana) so I clung to the belief that just maybe she was telling the truth, although I became more wary in my dealings with her.

Then one day, my husband returned home from the playground and told me how strangely she’d been talking about the CIA while they were pushing the girls in the swings. Then he told me that he’d given her our number. You gave her our number? I asked. Why on earth did you do that? I just didn’t know how to get out of it, he said.

So, of course, she called to invite my daughter for a playdate the next morning but she sounded completely normal so I agreed to bring her over, but then within the span of a few short hours was struck by a debilitating virus. I called her to ask if we could re-schedule and she said okay. She then called back and accused me of working for the CIA, of trying to undermine her relationship with her friends and family, of plotting intrigues against her on the playground. Appalled by her vehemence, I ended the conversation as gracefully as I could, and thought, well, that’s the end of that.

Of course, the two girls made a bee-line for each other whenever they saw each other but I tried to avoid the mother. Once, we approached the deserted park and there they were, the girl sitting on her mother’s lap with her mother draped over her which, after that demented diatribe, took on a more sinister aspect. I veered away from the entrance and went to another playground.

Several weeks later, another mother approached me and uncomfortably asked if it was true what this woman was saying about me. It turns out she was telling everyone that I was dying of cancer, that I worked for the CIA, and that I abused my daughter. I was outraged. But what was there to do? It seemed pointless to confront her. And that’s when I realized that most likely it was she who was abusing her daughter if by no other means than her craziness. It seemed likely that she was an unmedicated schizophrenic but again, what was there to do? I didn’t know her last name nor where she lived. I had no direct evidence, only my feelings.

I related this story to a friend who told me that she was acquainted with an alcoholic woman who often mentioned that she abused her dog, and then adopted a Chinese infant. My friend did contact Children and Youth Services, but there was little they could do.

So I wonder why we as a society allow people who are unfit parents to become parents in the first place? It’s a slippery slope, I know, but shouldn’t there be some conditions in place before one has a child? Things like another parent, mental health, financial stability? It seems like too little, too late to worry about these things after the child has been starved in the basement, burned by cigarettes, or sexually abused. But since we can’t seem to ban assault rifles, I’m afraid licensing parents must remain a futuristic concept.

Obama – The Glass is Half White

This morning I was wondering why blacks should get all the glory for Obama’s success. I mean, he’s half white, too; in fact, more than half white since he was raised by a Caucasian mother and grandmother in a predominantly white environment, whereas his black father spent most of his time in Africa, which raises the issue of race, or rather what constitutes race. Is Obama any more African American than he is American African? Somehow, appellations such as Irish American, Italian American et al seem ultimately more divisive than cohesive, but one must wonder exactly what is being identified by their usage. My father was born in the Netherlands but I do not feel the need to identify myself as a Dutch American, maybe because my last name does that for me. In the case of Obama, whose father is an African, and who has actually been to Africa, calling him an African American seems more apt than calling someone whose great-grandfather was born there and who has most likely never been to Africa, the same thing.

Is Obama considered black because he looks more black than he does white? But, really, he seems to have just as many white characteristics as he does black. Which raises the question of just how many black characteristics it takes to make a person of mixed race black. (I’m reminded of the 50s movie in which the main character’s black servant has a light-skinned daughter who successfully passes for white until her mother shows up at school one day.) Or is he considered black because that is what he wants to be considered. He could’ve been known as Barry Dunston (his mother’s name) which is a lot less exotic than Barack Obama, and, one suspects, a lot less attention-getting on college applications.

The Franklin Mint is advertising an Obama commemorative plate and in the commercial the most whitebread (bordering on cracker) family in America exclaims (with an alarming hint of south in the mouth) over Obama’s victory. Now I appreciate that black people are not the only ones who would want to buy this plate, but, frankly, methinks the Mint doth protest too much. Since blacks are embracing Obama’s victory as their victory would it be racist to portray a black family rejoicing over this plate? When did we lose the ability to call a spade a spade? I use this phrase intentionally because as far as I know it is not pejorative since it refers, I think, to a suit in a deck of cards, however, that did become the source of the pejorative phrase, black as the ace of spades, so now the two have become synonymous.

I am thrilled that Obama was elected since I admire him a great deal. I can’t say that some of my best friends are black because I have no black friends (other than a woman I adored in college) -- not for wont of trying, but for wont of opportunity. I hope I’m not prejudiced. Well, let me re-phrase that since I, like the Sean Penn character in Dead Man Walking, am very prejudiced – towards stupid people. But since Obama’s election, I’ve been given the opportunity to know a black family in much greater detail than heretofore afforded me and, better than not being prejudiced, I now embrace people who are a different color than myself.

I feel compelled to add in today’s politically correct environment that I write this as an exploration and an invitation rather than a diatribe.