Raising Your Child To Be Your Friend
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

My daughter Kira, 5, played hooky from school on Friday. I’m not sure if it’s called hooky in kindergarten, but she needed a new passport and had to appear with me at the agency between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Although her passport won’t expire until December, I thought it was better to stand in line and get the dirty deed done while I was six months pregnant, as opposed to eight.
There really is something to be said for being the first in line at the passport agency, because what I thought would take several hours was accomplished by 9:45 a.m. What were we going to do next? I wondered to myself. I could take her to school, I thought, as we rode the escalator upstairs. With my other children occupied, and a mile-long list of errands and work I needed to do, it seemed irresponsible not to take her to school.
But how often do I get to spend a few uninterrupted hours with one of my children, alone? I felt her pudgy hand inside mine and watched her leap off the escalator by herself. It felt indulgent, but I was going to spend the morning dawdling with Kira.
We started off by searching for the perfect apple at the Greenmarket outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where we had come to get the passport. I didn’t even know there was a farmers’ market at Rockefeller Plaza, but it turns out that through November, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, from 8 a.m.–6 p.m., you can scoop up homemade pies, doughnuts, honey, maple syrup, and produce.
Just reading the names of the apples was fun. Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Salome, Jonagold, Rome Beauty, Spartan, Sunrise. My mouth was drooling by the time we each chose an apple. We found a stoop nearby and looked at the roughly 200 flags that were flying. We searched for the American flag, spoke about what each star and stripe represents, and looked for other flags that we recognized.
We watched the ice skaters enjoy the pleasure of skating in T-shirts during this unusually warm October. We petted dogs that happened to stroll near us, and discussed the merits of big dogs versus small dogs, cats versus dogs, and rabbits versus cats.
When we finished our apples, we began to stroll up Sixth Avenue, until Kira passed a fountain in which she wanted to throw pennies. I pulled out a handful from my wallet and sat and watched as she threw them in, rolled up her sleeves, fished them out, and threw them in again.
“Are you making wishes?” I asked her. She smiled coyly but didn’t answer.
“Don’t tell me your wishes or they won’t come true,” I said to her in a singsong voice. She looked at me thoughtfully but said nothing.
We bought packs of chewing gum at a newsstand and proceeded to try them all in a mini taste test. Kira liked some newfangled Trident flavor, strawberry lime, while I preferred a more humdrum Big Red. “Too spicy,” Kira told me about my choice. “Too sweet,” I said about hers.
When we reached Central Park South, we looked at the horses and tried to choose a favorite. We sat on a park bench and looked at the skyline, comparing different styles of architecture.
I asked Kira if she thought her fountain wishes would come true.
“They don’t really come true, Mommy,” she said with an earnest smile. I was surprised by her answer.
“It’s still fun to make wishes, though,” I said. She nodded.
As we slowly made our way home, getting drizzled on in the process, I made a mental note to play hooky with each of my children this year. I am so busy making sure that I don’t make the mistake of being my children’s friend that I think I might be missing out on some fun.
My morning with Kira was a glimpse of what’s to come, I hope, for the two of us. And while I know that my primary responsibility right now is to be her parent, for the first time I realized that I am also raising this person who will eventually become a friend. If there is ever a reason to be a firm, authoritative, loving parent it is, of course, because you want to raise children who become the kind of adults you find compelling — sincere and compassionate, inquisitive and modest, resilient and responsible, loyal and hardworking.
Our last stop before we went home was to the pediatrician so that Kira could get a flu shot. When I told her where we were going, she looked at me as if I was ruining all the fun and began to protest. I cut her off. “You’re getting a flu shot and that’s that,” I said. The parent in me had returned.
sarasberman@aol.com