The nannies clustered on two benches and snuck drags off vape pens. The stay-at-home moms claimed the other two benches, made hushed comments about the vaping, called, “Jeremy, put that down,” or, “Stop hitting your sister, Terrence,” before turning their attention back to their phones. Three dads in baseball caps pressed their backs to the chain link fence that held us captive, took long sips from steaming travel mugs. They made small talk about yard work and renovations, stared at our nannies’ legs.
We gathered near the slide, waited for our adults to tell us to play, but they didn’t notice the tight knot we’d formed, how we bent our heads toward one another, our furtive whispers.
Terrence slapped his sister again, hard enough for a sharp crack to sound, just to see if their mom would notice. This time, his sister screamed, “Mommy,” but the mom didn’t move. She said, “I won’t warn you again, Terrence,” but we knew she would. She always did. Though sometimes she made him sit on the ground at her feet for three minutes. She set a timer, called it a time-out, continued her conversation about reliable babysitters and potty-training techniques.
We nudged Helen, and she climbed halfway up the slide’s ladder, then fell dramatically, arms flailing, legs akimbo. She screamed, grabbed her knee, turned on the tears. Her dad rushed over, knelt in front of her, looked at her leg, but all he did was kiss his fingertips, press them to her unbroken skin, say, “You’re all right,” and return to the fence without a backward glance.
We sighed, knew only blood would bring our adults to their feet, and even then, once someone produced a Mickey Mouse band aid, they’d return to their chatter. “This sucks,” Charlie said, the word coming out th-ucks, his front two teeth missing. They’d been loose before he threw himself from the monkey bars last week, and even when he’d knocked them into the dirt his nanny only wiped the blood off his face and put the teeth in a sandwich baggie before returning to her bench.
“Watch this,” Jade said and ran toward her mom at full speed. She waved her arms in the air, screamed at the top of her lungs, but her mom didn’t even pause her conversation. She squeezed the hand of another mom, whispered something in her ear. When Jade slammed into her legs, her mom only said, “Ouch, Jade. That hurts. Go play.” Which was what they always told us.
Every single day, they started unbuckling us from booster seats at 8am, each of them cradling a thermos of coffee, some with a little extra added. They patted our butts, said, “Charlie’s here,” like we didn’t know he would be, or, “Get your wiggles out,” like they were only here to exercise us. And we were tired of it. Tired of this same playground with its two swings, only one of which worked. With its slide that was always too hot and burned the backs of our thighs. With empty soda bottles and chip bags that fell from overflowing garbage cans. With the sandbox that was half cat poop.
We wanted some attention, dammit. We wanted a mom to lead us on a playground parade, a dad to let us cluster around him and choose individual gummy bears from his cupped palms, a nanny to put us on her lap as she went down the slide again and again.
Jade walked back to us, shoulders slumped, chin quivering though she always said she didn’t care that her mom refused to play.
“I know how to get their attention,” Jeremy said, his brows knitted, a twisted smile on his face. He could be fierce, had once shoved Helen so hard she lost her breath and the adults clustered around her for a good five minutes. Jeremy’s mom had taken him home then, made him write an apology note and deliver it the next day. He said it was the best thing that had happened in a while — she sat beside him while he wrote it, spent days hovering over him, talked about being nice to friends and the dangers of violence. But after a week, she forgot his mean streak, stopped her careful watch.
We turned to Jeremy, ready to take instruction. He grabbed a shovel from the sandbox and passed it to Jade, placed an empty soda bottle someone had tossed under the slide in Terrence’s hand, slid a stick the perfect length for swords into Helen’s. He bestowed similar weapons on each of us, then stuck his thumb in a mud puddle at the edge of the playground, swiped a slash of battle makeup across our cheeks.
Done, we looked a sight: a gaggle of kids in play clothes, each of us prepped for war, all clustered together, facing the parents, waiting for Jeremy’s signal. He stomped his feet, and we joined him, making as much racket as we could in our rubber soled tennis shoes. The grownups didn’t blink. Then, Jeremy screamed, a guttural noise, and we joined him, mouths open, teeth bared, all primal instinct. Only then did our nannies, moms, and dad notice and rise to their feet. After a minute’s confusion, it was like they’d expected our revolt — the nannies transformed their vape pens into swords, the moms lifted their phones as shields, and our dads swung their travel mugs like maces. Their screams were as feral as ours. And when Jeremy yelled, “Charge,” we ran at our adults, and they ran at us, everyone shrieking and snarling, weapons held aloft, and even as the battle began, we knew we’d already won.
Image by Hugo Cornuel on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Recreational Riot - May 14, 2026