(no subject)

[dolari]

Kids aren't subtle. Occasionally they're mean. So when we moved next to an elementary school, I wasn't looking forward to the 3 o'clock hour, and tried hard to be inside or outside.

Today I got back from the groceries, just as the kids let out. And sure enough, I got called out as they walked by our house.

"Daddy, I think that lady is a man."

Without skipping a beat, her father looked at her and said "So?"

"..."

And they walked on. I hope the lesson she learned was "Don't make fun of people who are 'different'" not "I need to make fun of people when daddy's not looking."

Comments

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

I remember the first time I saw a black person. (I lived in a very whitebread suburb for most of my first 18 years.) I was maybe 4 years old, and I was on an escalator in the department store with my mom. The gentleman was a few steps ahead of us and he was much, much older, all dapper with a porkpie hat and a trenchcoat.

"Mommy," I said (and probably pointed), "look: he's black! Why is he black?"

Awkwardness ensued. But to me, I wasn't making fun of "other." I was discovering it.

While I agree that being called out SUCKS, I can't help but wonder ... if the girl wasn't discovering different, too.

From the sound of it, she may have had a judgmental note in her voice; she was probably older than I'd been, and her worldview a little more entrenched. But perhaps, perhaps, this was her way of discovering different ... and her father heading off prejudice at the pass. I'm gonna hold out hope that Daddy was successful.

With all that said ...

*hugs*