Comment:

I think parents forget how scary they are to non-parents sometimes.

Humans are mammals. Etymologically speaking, you're a mammal because your mama has mammaries; the class Mammalia is defined by care for our offspring. Mama bears are dangerous if you threaten their cubs. We all know and accept and even celebrate this. It's held up as the highest form of self-sacrificial altruism. God is a father, supposedly, and God is unimpeachable Love.

We've all heard parents insist that they'd be willing to kill for their children, right? Sometimes it's in response to some hypothetical threat, sometimes it's apropos of nothing. Sometimes it's visceral and explicit, sometimes it's a nebulous "I would destroy you". Sometimes, it's a father indulging in a no-really-I'm-still-tough action movie fantasy, sometimes it's a mother asserting power in a world in which she feels otherwise powerless. Sometimes it's tongue-in-cheek, sometimes it's with iron sincerity.

But it's always against some imagined creepo lurking in the bushes, isn't it? Much like with other forms of violence, any cursory glance at the statistics will tell you that the vast majority of child abuse is coming from within the home, but these declarations of readiness are never aimed inward, are they? "THEY are coming for your kids" is like "they're taking your jobs" or "they're raising your taxes", it's a nebulous boogeyman that populist types can easily use to induce that ever-so-useful us-vs-them mindset.

It is worth noting that the loving paternal God of the Abrahamic religions kicked things off by having Abraham demonstrate that most parental of sentiments: "I brought you into this world, I can take you out" (followed shortly by "I know what's best, so I'm allowed to do THIS - drop your pants").

Parents are scary, whether they acknowledge it or not, whether they mean to be or not, whether they're your parents or someone else's. Lee, like all mammals, reacts to being scared with either fight or flight, and neither is useful or helpful in a modern context. Maybe they should have a kid.

Transcript:

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0355– 2167/07/07/11:08- sidewalk
Zoa: Well, that certainly was-
LC (struggling to pick up all their crap): We gotta go. We gotta move. We gotta go. C’mon.
Zoa: Easy there, bubbeleh, what’s the rush?
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LC (rushing): That offended parent was just getting Junior out of radius, they could double back any second! We need to not be here when their friends show up. I’ve already called a cab, ditch the boobwater, we can worry about my casts somewhere else.
Zoa: Lee, I really don’t think anyone’s going t-
LC: You heard Mezzer Twofeather, Zoa! Parents who think an outsider is being weird around their kids equals angry mob, that’s human nature! We need to get gone asap, you need to modify your chassis, I gotta dye my hair, that’s the most distinctive… can we switch hair?
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Zoa: Technically yes, but I don’t think you’d want the scalp impla-
LC (struggling with car door): You can get started on that, then, and we’ll get to-why the hell isn’t this door opening?
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Zoa: Possibly because that’s not your cab, it’s just another car that happens to be stopped at-
speaker on car: Can I help you?
LC (staggering back, falling over): Shit!
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