We're spending a huge amount of time at the local playground again. Ruby is obsessed with the tire swing and usually has a grand time screaming with her fellow tire swingers.

The playground is a microcosm of the good, the bad and the ugly. Just imagine territorial and possessive toddlers, protective parents, many many different parenting philosophies, and throw in primarily people of color caregivers with primarily white parents who have only recently been able to claim this neighborhood as their own, and it can get happily and sometimes not so happily crazy.

It's easy to feel lonely in a playground. So I've been happy to get to know some of the parents of kids Ruby's age. We'll gravitate towards one another if our kids allow it and don't run off in opposite directions. I've met gay mom's and a German mom and a dad who is a teacher at a really cool school that we'll never be able to afford to send Ruby to.

The challenge is what to talk about. Our kids, quite naturally? Well, yes and no. Yes, because that makes the most sense. I've rarely had a non-kid related conversation at that playground, which makes me realize I ought to try harder. But it's hard to get anywhere really deep on the topic of our kids because we do quickly get into the parenting choices and opinions and naturally we all feel, as parents having to make those decisions, that ours are the best.

It's a hard place to be. I believe all parents, whether they take their time to think something through or not, whether they read and research or not, will do what they think is best for their kids. You want everything for your kids, so you can't help but feel passionate and engaged about your choices for your kids. And that passion and engagement is a good thing. Except that it's then so hard to not let that lead to judgment about other choices that other parents have made for their kids.

If only we had something else. A society where making choices about your kids wasn't so individualized. Where the care for our kids wasn't so individualized. Where the public played as much a role as the private. And where the public was a safer space.

But we don't and so we go to the playground and make the best out of it that we can.