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Germany shuns "foreign" families
Immigrants and their German-born children find themselves cut off from state benefits.
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[01/03/00]

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By Damien Cave
[12/30/99]

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We all laugh. We don't know what else to do. None of us have great memories of the police. When I was a kid, the cops in my Brooklyn neighborhood hung out in the candy store. They seemed more menacing than the neighborhood criminals, who were far too busy running numbers games to offer any threat to regular people.

Also Today My mother loves me, ma'am! I'm a rough, tough Massachusetts cop. But mom still tries to keep me home on snow days. By Ali Wicks

Police were the brutes at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Everyone at the table is old enough to remember that. Police stood at the edges of demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, just waiting for someone to provoke them. Most of my friends took part in those demonstrations. If I press for the image of a noble officer, only Serpico comes to mind, and what mother wants to think about her daughter being set up by fellow cops and getting shot in the face -- even if the experience did yield a book and a movie deal?

Learning that Ali was gay was nothing compared to hearing that she was abandoning a liberal arts education to enroll in a criminal justice program with the hope of eventually attending the police academy. People have died at the police academy. Really. Just a few years ago a recruit died of kidney failure because the drill instructor wouldn't let him drink enough water. Three or four others ended up in the hospital.

Ali took yoga as a winter sport. She's always hated authority. ("Yes, but" is her favorite answer in any argument.) Yet she went to the academy and did better than simply surviving the physical and psychological challenges of her training. She earned the award for academic achievement, made me cry at her graduation and now she's a cop in a blue uniform and black boots. She wears a gun on her hip and handcuffs hang from her belt -- along with a special-issue flashlight, a huge key ring, a baton and other things I can't remember. The belt is heavy enough to bruise her slim hips. The bulletproof vest is stiff and hot, but because she made a promise to her grandmother, she wears it, even in 90-degree heat.

At dinner I tell my friends about the women's self-defense course Ali teaches. Roy talks about her community policing efforts. Our friends tell us that we are wonderful parents. I accept the compliments. I don't tell them that I am jealous because their kids are safer than my kid and because their kids will probably earn more money over their lifetimes, enjoy more autonomy at work and never have to say, "Yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir."

Jealousy such as this is an unattractive fact of motherhood. It's the way I felt when Ali was 2 and wouldn't eat anything but raisins and Cheerios while my best friend's daughter ate everything, even liver and fish. I could practically see Amanda's little brain cells developing, and sometimes I thought it wouldn't hurt her to miss a meal or two. Sometimes I wanted to grab the spoon from her chubby little fist. But instead I smiled at my friend Lydia and told her Amanda was certainly a great eater and, by the way, did she ever worry about those permanent fat cells that develop early -- you know, the kind that live in your thighs forever?

Next page | She went straight for his crotch with the grab-twist-and-pull maneuver