Difficult Kids

Here's a piece by a guy named Neal Pollack regarding his son. (It's on Salon, which makes you watch an ad before you can read their stuff, so the link might not work. Excuse me if this is a pain - I'm not quite up on this technology as yet.)

Mr. Pollack's kid, who is two or three years old, got thrown out of several preschools because he's taken to biting the other kids at irregular intervals. He's drawn blood on several occasions.

Mr. Pollack is a writer and works at home, and his wife is a painter and does the same. Now they have nowhere to send their son until summer is over, which means three months of dealing with, at best, an energetic toddler with violent tendencies. Like most parents, the Pollacks love their son and see his good qualities towering over his bad ones, but they don't blame the schools for sending him home. Nevertheless, they worry about getting their work done with the kid underfoot all day. Not to mention their worry about the boy and what can possibly be bothering him to such an extent.

I'm not a parent, and I can well understand their concerns, but I still think Mr. Pollack's attitude is a selfish one. So I wrote Salon a letter explaining why:

For all Mr. Pollack's attempts to be evenhanded, his awkward acknowledgement that teachers are overworked and other parents are worried sick about young Elijah's attacks, there is something distasteful about his complaints. I'm sympathetic toward his inability to place his kid and his description of what a sweetie Elijah is despite his tendency to bite, but most of my sympathy is reserved for those who have to deal with the little monster while Mr. Pollack writes, his wife paints, and they both worry about watching their kid this summer.

Fundamentally, this is the story of a couple with a seriously disturbed child who can't bring themselves to face facts because he's so cute most of the time. What's more, although I can understand Mr. Pollack's wish for a peaceful summer in which he can get some work done, and his vague sense of guilt that the possible loss of free time upsets him as much as or more than his child's problems, my sympathy takes a real nose dive at the mere fact that he wrote about it. Evidently he expects us readers to forgive him this unworthy but very human thought because he's being public about it. Sorry. I'm a reader, not a therapist.

I find myself wondering if there are any working-class families out there who can't work when they please, haven't a prayer of getting a troubled kid into any preschool at all, let alone a premiere one, and have to deal with the little brat anyway. Against that image, Mr. Pollack and his family are sitting pretty.

I'm a political liberal and deeply resentful of the right's constant assumption that because of my beliefs I belong to some snotty elite, but such an elite does exist. I have no idea whether Mr. Pollack is a liberal or a conservative; a whiner, however, he is.

Benshlomo says, Sometimes you just gotta deal.