Having a Soft Heart in a PlayPlace

"You're gonna fall and bust your ass!" the guy called to his son, who was dangling upside-down from a climbing rope on the second level of a three-tier McDonald's PlayPlace.

This father and his friend had together brought three rambunctious boys for Happy Meals, ice cream, and play time. Their boys were maybe 9, 7, and 2. I had brought my own two kiddos -- ages 5 and 2 -- to the same junk food joint for dinner and to burn off some energy. My husband was on day three of a five-day trip out of town, and I didn't have the energy to keep yelling "stop yelling!" at the library so I took us somewhere that yelling was acceptable if not encouraged. This, however, was not exactly the kind of yelling I expected.

An enormous array of people visit fast food restaurants located near major highways. I was the suburban SAHM sipping a Coke; these two dads each wore large-gauge, black plugs in their earlobes and spit dip into used plastic cups while they chatted. Nevertheless our kids, and other children, melded into a chaotic group climbing up levels and sliding down plastic tube slides. Remember the vortex of dirt and noise that was the Tasmanian Devil when he moved? That's basically a group of kids at a PlayPlace.

Some kids are rougher and more brazen than others. Today those kids belonged to the men sitting next to me. They raced past the other children sometimes bumping and pushing, they proclaimed their right (by virtue of being the biggest) to go first down the slide, they executed acrobatic maneuvers just to prove they could...or to earn swear words from their parents in public. They were loud, domineering, fearless.

In contrast, my son has a healthy sense of caution, shies away from cacophony, and came running to me wailing when he scraped the length of his shin on one of the hard plastic landings. As I bent to inspect his injury (no blood, but an angry scratch and blossoming bruise) and give it an all-healing mother's kiss, I saw the men glance my direction. With their child-unfriendly language and obvious body decorations, these men seemed coarse. And I wondered if they thought, at least in comparison to their boys, that my son was a wimp.

That kid is what's wrong with America today, I imagined they would tell each other.

In recent years (especially during the current and previous presidential terms) much has been said about the "wussification of America." Among other complaints like foreign policy and safe spaces, critics have complained parents are raising a nation of children who are coddled, fragile, fearful, anxious, and weak. Pundits claim teens today (and the children coming up behind them) are ill-equipped to deal with the stressors of practical life and collapse under pressure.

I can't help but notice the complainers are mostly self-important men who see empathy, kindness, and restraint as personality flaws to be condemned. These commentators feel true strength lies in being loud, unapologetic, brash, and bitingly honest. In their ideal reality, we would all be bulls in china shops. But who would be left to craft the china?

The truth is, it is brave to have a soft heart in a cruel world. Those who open their hearts widest are the most likely to be hurt deeply, and often. To do it anyway is not only courageous but enviable.

Perhaps my son isn't bold, but he helped his little sister with a boost up to the level she couldn't reach, and called for me when she got scared and couldn't get down on her own. Maybe he's not blazing his own trail through the outback, but he's first to fetch her favorite dolly and offer a Band-Aid when she's hurting.

In fact, when I yelled at my two kids that evening for knocking an automatic door off its rails and told them to go sit down right now, my daughter cried (she feels everything 150 percent in her own right). My son told me he "had to make her feel better" until I finished ordering our food.

And he was visibly saddened when a little girl whom he'd been chasing refused his hug before we left. "She's my new friend," he said, "and I'm going to miss her."

To be fair, my son is no wimp. He does more than his share of pushing, yelling, and earning his injuries. He runs into walls with his bike, tries headstands on the couch, and roughhouses with his dad. But he is also the most caring, tender child I've ever had the joy of loving.

You may call me biased, but others see it too. On a recent assessment, my son's preschool teacher wrote that he "is always the first to show empathy toward his classmates." I would rather raise a child who is known for his deep feelings and thoughtfulness than one who is rude, cold, or selfish.

In a world where high-schoolers are shooting each other in first period, where angry drivers are mowing down pedestrians on streets, and where people admire a bully president, kindness and empathy are what's right with children today. We need more of that, not less.