Klara had her very first music lesson today! It was lots of fun even though the lesson included parents singing and I’m absolutely the worst singer on the planet. At the lesson, teacher and parents sang to the babies, babies rattled instruments and drummed and got massages to the sounds of songs.
The only weird thing – and this is something I have been noticing at the daycare, too – parents tend to be very tense. There are waves of tension coming from them and I don’t know why. You smile at one, and they look as alarmed as if you tried to steal their baby. Not even in the MLA job interview ballroom did I feel this amount tension emanating from people.
Clarissa's Blog 
My guesses
child abduction hysteria – I would have assumed it had died down from mid 80’s peaks, but you never know
status striving – parent’s are unofficially competing with each other and watching each other like a hawk for missteps they can gloat over and/or tell all their friends about
some other american weirdness – not being there I’m not as up to date on the latest hysteria
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Yeah, there’s the competitive parenting aspect. It’s really weird but you get used to it.
And don’t underestimate xenophobia. I look ordinary enough for the Midwest, but then I say a few sentences and some people visibly tense up.
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People have gotten more high-strung when they hear accents in the past year or so. My parents and I were at a local mall, talking in Russian obviously, and I noticed this older couple glaring are us and making faces like we were shoplifting.
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All of these activities bring out their latent infant trauma.
At least no glue or play doh or scissors was involved.
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There was this baby that looked so much like me it was weird. Like a little copy of my face and not in childhood but right now.
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