Bum in a Jaguar….

Today I was accosted by a woman in the Tucson Public Library parking lot. While this happens fairly frequently, especially down here where it’s nice and warm in winter, this woman didn’t want money. She wanted a break. “What do you do with your two-year-old all day?” she said. “I have a two-and-a-half year old son and I’m 42 and all my friends are done with kids and I just don’t know what to do with him all day.” I didn’t say anything, I just looked at her for a minute, and then gave her a hug. She promptly burst into tears. Later on we got around to names and introductions, and then we had lunch at Bentley’s and let the kids play and had nice, empathetic conversation about how frustrating it can be to raise children today. You know, with “You have to raise your own kids, daycare is bad” and “Why don’t you get a nice job,” coming out of the same person’s mouth. Or about how working moms and stay-at-home moms (there’s now an acronym — SAHMs) don’t intermingle much (or approve of each other). It’s just one more issue for women to be split on. But, today it wasn’t. Today I made a friend — and it was nice.