By Alex Moreno
Bowdoin College
There were twenty-four of us in the class, and as we pulled up to the first attraction on our bike tour, Norrebro’s BaNanna Park, two girls towards the end of the line decided that the best way to stop was to drag their toes along the concrete. They bumped and tottered to a halt in their pink helmets, and I watched their mouths form tiny O’s as the bicycles struck back and plummeted to the ground, one on top of another. The bikes had successfully escaped their amateur riders, leaving them flailing on the concrete. Both girls shrieked.
It had only been a week since the twenty-four of us were declared classmates, so any sort of camaraderie that comes with enduring the torture of lectures and exams and essays together had yet to materialize. No one laughed, and only a few of us cracked slight smiles, subtly looking around to see if anyone else shared a similar dark sense of humor. I was one of those cruel people, but my gaze and arrogant smile was only met by a member of a small group of Danish children whose park we had invaded.
The young boy was squatting in front of a tall building lining the park, elbows on knees, white hair parted down the middle. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, but he exuded a confidence that belied his youth. His true age hid under a long black coat, a thick black scarf, and black jeans, sneakers.
I broke our eye-contact as soon as it began. I was automatically and uncomfortably intimidated by him and his friends’ simple coolness. I imagined their names were something like Frederik or Kristoff or Camilla or Marie as they snickered to themselves, pointing with no shame at the Americans who had infiltrated their space, undoubtedly tearing apart the girls with the pink helmets in loud Danish phrases indecipherable to our unsophisticated ears. One of the other boys leaned on the facade of a brilliantly colored building depicting the classic, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” proverb. Bright red, blue, and orange cartoon animals danced along the bottom of the wall, a stark contrast behind the monochromatic clothing of the young boy and his friends. They were so cool. So Danish.
On the other side of the structure were picnic tables littered with more Danish children, all of whom were younger than ten. A few of them stared at us, but for the most part they were busy jumping on and off the benches, some pushing each other, some falling, but all giggling.
My professor firmly tapped the small microphone attached to his headset to regain the class’ attention, and all of us winced as the sound echoed in our headsets.
“Yes, well class, here we will take a small break,” he said. “Feel free to walk around and admire BaNanna Park, but I hope nobody’s actually hungry! The name’s just in reference to that yellow embankment over there! Make sure not to get in the way of any skateboarders!” And with a laugh, he let us loose.
I looked to Haley, a friend I knew from home, and after exchanging eye-rolls about our fellow classmates, we started on our stroll around the park.
“God, I just still can’t get over it,” she said. “Isn’t it weird that we’re like…in Copenhagen….abroad…”
“I literally never thought this day would come.”
“Also, like, we’re juniors! I am not a junior.”
“Well I definitely don’t want to go back to sophomore year,” I said, glancing over to the graffiti-covered building. The children in black had set up a boom-box and were in the process of lighting each other’s cigarettes. A feeling similar to uneasiness scrunched up my eyes and nose.
“Let’s be freshmen again.”
“Or we could just be Da—Ah! Jesus!”
Suddenly, without warning, a small blur skipped in front of me, and the two of us jumped back in surprise. One of the small girls who had been playing by the picnic benches danced around us, followed by two friends who we almost trampled as we backed away. Haley laughed nervously, and we looked at each other, not knowing what to say or do. We just stood there awkwardly, waiting for the bizarreness to cease.
But the children were unfazed by our strange language, long legs, twisted faces. Instead, they proceeded to lightly jog around us, giggling and using our tall bodies as props in whatever game they had made up. After circling us twice, they ran back towards the picnic benches, leaving us alone for the remainder of our walk.
They didn’t care that we were strangers or foreign or that there was a group of twelve-year-olds dressed in all black smoking cigarettes across the park. But more importantly, their parents didn’t care. None of their parents. Suddenly I realized that missing from the entire scene was the presence of a Dane over twelve years old. No one to make rules or yell or have eyes and ears everywhere. The children were free to play as they pleased, and if that meant being pushed off the side of a picnic table, then that’s what it meant.
After the bike tour ended, I plugged my temporary home address into Google Maps and left my class behind. I hadn’t quite gotten used to the unyielding nature of my own bike, so there was no shortage of passive aggressive bike-honks. The chimes of the bells were deceivingly sweet; quick backwards glares and scoffs at traffic lights reminded me of my fellow cyclists true feelings.
But I cautiously sailed down quiet cobblestone streets, my red bike bumbling and jangling underneath me as I clenched the handlebars tightly, scrunching up my cheeks. So loud, so uncool.
I then turned onto a main road, one lined with cafés and small boutiques, bustling with people and cars and of course, my fellow bikers. I had time and nothing to do, so I confidently raised my right hand and pulled over onto the sidewalk. Again, more bike honks.
As I zipped the front pocket on my backpack shut, I noticed a man window shopping a few meters away from me. He was tall, lanky, and rested one hand lightly on the handle of a baby carriage. He rocked it back and forth absently, his attention focused on the hanging lights on display in the store window. I then watched as he swiftly secured the carriage’s kickstand, and walked into the shop, leaving his child on the street. My keys dropped to the ground in the same instant that I watched him descend the stairs in the back of the showroom.
Was I supposed to run in after him? Call Social Services? Take the baby for myself?
Heat erupted from my chest and spread to my arms and legs as my mind immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario. The baby would be kidnapped. I knew it, my body knew it, and I was sure that the baby knew it too. Well, maybe he didn’t know it yet. It would surely take a minute or two to realize he had been abandoned.
But he didn’t say anything about it. Didn’t fuss or cry or reach his hands up for a parent that wasn’t there. Instead, he was still and quiet.
I, on the other hand, was frantic and fumbling. In order to save this baby’s life, I kept trying to make eye contact with the other people walking on the sidewalk. I widened my eyes and followed them with my gaze as they walked by, but not one person looked up from their little private bubbles. I was left alone in my quest for justice.
But just as soon as the father I had judged as unfit to parent disappeared, he returned. He calmly walked to the stroller, flipped up the kickstand, and executed an impeccable K-turn.
I would later learn that this type of practice is extremely common in Copenhagen. What I saw as an act of negligence is so prevalent in Denmark that people barely notice.
I think that’s sort of sad.
It’s sad not because parents are leaving their babies alone on the sidewalk, but because my upbringing has so deeply instilled in me that half the people on the street must be baby-stealers. It’s sad because I actually believe that.
When I first arrived in Copenhagen, a friend of mine told me that one of her professors informed her class that Danes teach their children to be fearless. I thought about my meltdowns on ski-slopes, crying fits on airplanes, avoidance of Times Square and traffic and roller coasters, and I was sad. Not sort of sad, but sad.
A month or so later, I decided to take a bike ride to a part of Copenhagen I hadn’t yet visited. Well, okay, I took a bike ride to an ice cream place in a part of Copenhagen I hadn’t yet visited. Still counts.
I took my milkshake and walked back to the small park that I had noticed on my bike ride over. As this was a more metropolitan area of the city, I was pleased to find a small patch of green where I could enjoy my milkshake in peace.
I opened the gate and quickly realized that I was wrong. The space was an area for playing, but it was not a park. Instead, the gate opened to reveal a miniature skate park for miniature people.
Children ranging from the ages of seven to thirteen flew around the park on scooters and skateboards to match their size. The younger ones shrieked and squealed with delight as they rode over large mounds of concrete, not yet ready to tackle some of the more advanced obstacles like the menacing half pipe.
I took a seat at one of the benches along the side of the gate, and watched in astonishment as the scrawniest little boy scootered the hell out of that half pipe. He wore circular glasses, shoulder pads, and had blonde hair that stuck out from under his helmet in a goofy and clumsy way. But he was anything but clumsy. The smaller children would occasionally stop to watch him perform, marveling when he would add a small hop between the ramps.
I imagined that the skate park was his home, a place where he could shine and shed all his worries, a place where he could be bold, where he could be fearless. There was no obstacle in the park that he couldn’t tackle, just as I imagine that there will be no obstacle in life that he will not face with this same amount of confidence.
Before I left the park, I counted the number of children skating around: twelve.
I also counted the number of adults sitting on the sidelines: five.
A trust in humanity. That’s what it is. People trust people in Copenhagen. It doesn’t matter the age—from infancy to childhood, adolescence to adulthood, it’s there. Parenting isn’t rooted in fear, but it’s a mechanism through which fear is eradicated. Baby carriages are left on sidewalks, little girls know no barriers to the games they play, and skate parks are built for kids in goofy glasses who will no doubt build their own one day.