Oma Knows Best

I’ve been invited to a party at a coworker’s house that I really want to go to, but my wife ends up having to travel at the same time, leaving me to watch our two kids, ages three and six.

My coworker generously offers that families are welcome to come to the party, and not wanting to miss it, I take her up on the offer. This is not a raucous, alcohol-fueled party; it’s more like twenty or so people having a nice potluck dinner at her house, so I figure this is an okay parenting decision.

Things are okay at first. Another coworker brings her own two kids, about the same ages as mine, and the four kids are having fun while the adults chitchat. But after about an hour, it’s clear that all four kids are losing their minds. They’re not being destructive, but they’re definitely getting wild and requiring frequent intervention to calm down. I can’t fully blame them, since I dragged them to an event they have no interest in, and can you really expect a three-year-old to maintain perfect behavior when there’s not really anything for them to do?

I’m realizing that I was probably too ambitious to think that this would go well, and I’m about to leave, when suddenly an elderly German woman emerges from the basement. It turns out this is my coworker’s boyfriend’s mother, who lives with them in the basement apartment. 

She holds out a beat-up-looking cardboard box.

Elderly German Woman: “I have a game that is a fun game for children.”

It was very generous of her, but she said it in such a quiet voice, and the game was so decrepit-looking compared to modern toys, that I assumed the kids would have no interest. BUT NO. The moment she said this sentence, all four kids magically fell in line behind her like ducklings, and they followed her, single-file, quietly and politely, to the dining room table, where she set up the game and quietly explained the rules. I just remember that it’s some game with a German name and wooden pieces.

All four kids, who had been bouncing off the walls just a moment earlier, pleasantly played the game with [Elderly German Woman] — even the little ones — for the next hour and a half. It was absolutely astonishing.

Never underestimate the power of a kindly grandmother.