Among the Intellectualoids/Grandpa Spock's Children
Tedeschi, Mary
AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS
GRANDPA SPOCK'S CHILDREN
Whenever American children are not pouring their lunch money into video games, we are told, they are worrying about nuclear war. Fear of the bomb...
...Surely now we would hear about the children...
...Proceeds from the festivities, it said, would go to "B.J.'s Kids," a day-care center designed to "oppose the stereotypes that help oppress Black and Third World people and dehumanize everyone...
...ALL ADULTS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A CHILD...
...People and pets floating in mid-air, limbs lost or askew...
...look like...
...What a hoax on children...
...But the biggest piece of poster-board had been saved to welcome Spock to P.S...
...At last, I thought, the Afflicted Ones...
...Outside the auditorium, two tables offered an array of knickknacks: flyers announcing summer marches, brochures from the War Resisters League, and an assortment of colorful buttons...
...It was well received, particularly those sequences in which the good doctor sneers at anti-Communist paranoia...
...For one thing, they were smiling...
...Spock's Babies is a documentary about draft resistance, its relevance less than obvious at a time when the feds can't even prosecute those who refuse to register...
...After five minutes the mere mention of Reagan's name was enough to set them chortling...
...First to appear was Serious Biz-ness, a husband and wife folksinging team that had "been part of numerous struggles for peace and human rights...
...The first impression was one of overwhelming adult femininity...
...What third-grader wouldn't rise to the occasion of "How I Spent the Nuclear Holocaust...
...Impeccably attired in a dark, three-piece suit, the doctor looked less clinical than ever as he worked the audience...
...But these women, with their tailored skirts and jumpers, stylish haircuts and brassieres, were different...
...9, an elementary school on the Upper West Side...
...A brochure was thrust into my hand...
...Perusing the Village Voice for details, I found that the party would be held at P.S...
...Or that ubiquitous slogan-WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS- written in pseudo-childish scrawl...
...But the audience-now fifty to sixty strong-demanded an encore...
...For another, they were in fact talking to the few men present...
...Serious left their seats, they nearly halved the number of blacks sitting in the audience, a feat surpassed only by the cacophony they created onstage...
...One day a bomb was dropped on Manhattan," they began...
...Spock's Babies...
...Curiosity struck: millions of children are consumed and debilitated by their fear of nuclear war, but I had yet to meet a one...
...And at first, it seemed no one was...
...not since a "Take Back by Mary Tedeschi the Night" march had I witnessed such an exclusively female gathering...
...In their concern for children, it seemed, gay men would be second to none...
...A few nodded before a large.poster which hung near one of the doors...
...RALLY IN THE DELA-CORTE THEATER, it said...
...Spock...
...He then moved on to his favorite diseases: Lyndon Johnson, the military-industrial complex, politicians who mention God, anti-Communist fanatics...
...But what curious little creatures...
...Nearby, a cherubic matron urged passersby to sign her birthday card for Dr...
...Just as I suspected, it was riddled with carrots...
...A spokesman for B.J.'s diapered world federalists approached the podium and began the introductions...
...Was The Fate of the Earth up for a New-berry Award...
...In fact, given the gruesome reminders of nuclear annihilation looming at them from every corner, they seemed to be suppressing their apocalyptic fears remarkably well...
...What did such tots Mary Tedeschi is assistant editor of the Public Interest...
...Fear of the bomb has been invoked to explain everything from declining SAT scores to increasing juvenile delinquency, and psychologists across the country -not to mention the Union for Concerned Scientists and the NEA-have united against this bogeyman of the eighties...
...Were they snug in their beds at home, or waiting in the wings for their cue...
...Later, he explained that though parents are afraid to admit how frightened their offspring are by the threat of nuclear holocaust, "when psychologists ask the kids in school, then everyone owns up...
...AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS GRANDPA SPOCK'S CHILDREN Whenever American children are not pouring their lunch money into video games, we are told, they are worrying about nuclear war...
...Unless I lost count, Spock mentioned children exactly twice...
...The children, it appeared, were leaving...
...Distracted by her smile, I tried to scan the crowd for evidence of afflicted children...
...But still no children...
...But no one will...
...Try as I might I could see only children-polite little creatures, to be sure, and rather more subdued than the clamoring tots I remember best-but children nonetheless...
...Accompanying these tales were paintings so lurid that Edvard Munch himself would have blanched...
...Today's antinuclear parents are distinguished only by the lengths to which they go to exploit the childish predilection for gore...
...When Mr...
...and Mrs...
...All that was left was to sample the cake...
...Evidence of "owning up" was produced when the audience adjourned to the cafeteria for a light buffet...
...But then out of nowhere, a swarm of innocents appeared...
...Did they slobber, throw fits, wear diapers into puberty...
...blood spattering and bricks flying as mad-eyed bombardiers unleash their deadly cargo on New York City...
...Women of various ages clustered near the doors, their chatter overpowered by the whine of Joan Baez within...
...To that end, "we encourage everyone to build with the blocks, to play in the dramatic area, to kick the ball...
...And so was I. The Left, of course, has long put its offspring to good rhetorical use...
...Another musician appeared, this time to lead the thinning crowd through the Top 40 of sixties activism...
...I went inside the auditorium...
...One wall was covered with the school-children's depictions of nuclear attack...
...But where were those hysterical tykes in whose name this war on the senses was being waged...
...It is," he intoned, " a film particularly relevant to us today.'' The hope that we were getting down to business died quickly when I saw that the film was made in 1968, a full decade before our activists discovered the plague afflicting their offspring...
...Opposite the doors, a representative for the Gay Fathers Forum offered pamphlets and newsletters on gay parenting...
...Just when I was about to give up, our spokesman appeared and introduced Dr...
...First, he castigated civil defense advocates for terrorizing children about nuclear war...
...Spock will speak to us about preventing Nuclear War...
...Any support out there for "My Summer in the Gulag...
...The program listed the Erotic Baker, that landmark of Christopher Street best known for its anatomically correct confections, as second among contributing merchants...
...No nail-biting or hair-tearing or gnashing of teeth...
...Everyone should stop and listen...
...Antiwar posters were evenly spaced across the bottom of the stage, and identical fresh bouquets flanked the podium which stood in the center...
...Wheeling in the cakes, they led the beaming adults through two choruses of "happy birthday...
...Suddenly the clamor increased, and there was Spock himself leaping gamely from the orchestra pit onto the stage...
...No childish preparation this...
...Never has the Left spoken as authoritatively for children as in the antinuclear movement...
...one in English, another in charmingly mispronounced Spanish...
...With these and other questions in mind, I set out for the Upper West Side...
...Who can forget those docile children of the sixties who blinked at the sun as their parents sat or marched for peace...
...after ten, they were laughing and applauding wildly, as Spock waxed about civil disobedience: "It's just plain FUN, especially if you like to sing...
...So imagine my delight on reading that the biggest Christopher Robin of them all was celebrating his birthday in New York: Benjamin Spock, inaugurating his ninth decade with a lecture on children and nuclear war...
...And what in the world should I wear...
...he cried...
...Pages filled with careful print described the rubble, the radiation poisoning, the lost parents and siblings...
...You wouldn't believe the acoustics in a jail cell...
...Did they prefer American Catholic bishops to the Jedi and Scooby-Doo...
...9. In large, childish print were scrawled the words: "Dr...
Vol. 16 • October 1983 • No. 10
