During circle time, the kids sang a song and one of the two teachers told them about what was at the art table, the sand table, and so on for the day. Then one of the four-year-olds (the four-year-olds are so big and mature! It's amazing) said, "Ms. S, I don't know how many children are here today," and the teacher said, "Well, why don't you count them?"
So the little girl did. She even remembered to count herself, which impressed me.
Then somebody wondered out loud how many girls there were in the class. And the teacher told this same little girl to count them. She counted a little girl with long curly blonde hair, and herself. "That's right, there are two girls!" the teacher said.
The other teacher said, "We have three girls in the class, Ms. S." And Ms. S said, "But L. isn't here today! We have two girls today."
One of the boys wanted to count the boys, and he did. He counted Yehva as one of the boys, and announced that there were 8 boys in the class. "That's right!" Ms. S said perkily.
The other teacher said, "There are seven boys in the class today." I think she might have been trying to avoid saying "Yehva is a girl" out loud--maybe so Yehva wouldn't feel self-conscious?--but I was about a half-second from saying it myself. When Ms. S still didn't seem to get it, the second teacher moved over behind Yehva, and pointing down at her from behind her back, said firmly, "Ms. S, there are three girls in the class today." At which point you could see the "No Clue/ Gets It" meter flip in Ms. S's head, a la Scott Pilgrim.
Ms. S was mortified, and she apologized to me later. The whole thing went over Yehva's head; through this whole drama, she sat happily on her little mat waiting for free-play time so she could turn the music player on and dance.
My own reaction was surprisingly complex. On the one hand, I don't really blame the teacher for "reading" Yehva as a boy during circle time; little kids and their hair and clothes are so strongly gender-coded that it's no wonder someone who had just met the kids two days earlier, and who was preoccupied with managing 10 of them, would slip into temporarily thinking that a little kid in boys' shoes, blue jeans, a boys' t-shirt, and a mohawk was a boy. Heck, I have trouble looking at her and seeing a girl sometimes. (David, after cutting the mohawk: "We'll never convince anybody she's a girl now." Me: "Are we convinced she's a girl?")
At the same time, I felt surprisingly emotional about it. By the time Ms. S's clue-meter clicked over, I had tears starting behind my eyes. I still don't really know why; I wasn't angry, Yehva was just sitting happily and obliviously in the circle. But there you have it.
I'm not reading a lot into Yehva's current fashion sense. She does vehemently reject flowered shirts, and she did ask David to cut the decorative sateen bow off her underpants tonight. She is awfully fond of Spider-man, she did ask me to take her to another minor-league baseball game, and she did strongly express her desire for, first, short hair and then, a mohawk like Eric's. But I'm not really sure what, if anything, that means for a kid who is barely 3. As the poet says, I witness and wait.
Edited to add: Carl, David and I saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World the other night. I agree with reviewers who think it dragged a little around the third through fifth evil exes, but we were also clearly the target audience and so there was much for us to enjoy in it (we all squee'd with delight when we recognized the Zelda theme music on the soundtrack, for instance). Also, this whole not-so-much-with-the-girl-stuff thing Yehva has going on is one of the things that makes me glad she found her way to us, where we're pretty much down with whatever combination of gender(s) and sexualities the kids work out for themselves.
6 comments:
Whether she is exploring and experimenting, or wanting to emulate her big brother, it isn't clear, but then why should it be? It is such a long process to find out who you are. At least it was for me...I'm still working on it. But, what's important is that you and David have listened and are loving her regardless. Who wouldn't be happily sitting on a mat under those circumstances. That the teacher was mortified by her mistake was important to me when reading this. That she apologized to you was crucial, too. But that Yehva did not notice all this was going on I think was most important. She is too young to be a part of this social mess and the constraints that are present.
And, your tears? Well, maybe it had to do with the fact that you so dearly love Yehva and don't want to see her hurt, misunderstood or not counted? I know that is what I want for my kids.
If and when my kids want to make choices about their hair and clothes, I hope that I am as supportive as you. I have always thought I would be, but I guess I won't know until I get there. Yehva is adorable no matter what her hair looks like. It is the sparkle in her eyes that makes her so beautiful.
Yes, witness and wait. Sometimes I think that's a lot of what parenting is.
Yeah. Whatever she ends up being/deciding, being part of your family is gonna make it all easier and less fraught than it would be in just about any other family on earth. Love you!!
If it were me in the situation -- and that's not to say "this is what you should do", only "this is what I myself would do" -- I would discourage the teachers from "correcting" children if they gender Yehva as a boy. I would say, "It doesn't matter to me; if she has a problem with it, she can correct them herself." If I found that it actually did matter to me, I would inquire within myself as to why it mattered. (I'm curious, too, what feels important to you about having her identified as a girl? Not to judge, just out of honest curiosity.) I might ask my (hypothetical) child, at a time when we weren't in the classroom, and in as neutral a way as possible, how she felt about whether people thought she was a boy or girl, and if she said something like "of course I'm a girl!" I might then consider correcting people who identified her as a boy, but if she said something more like "Who cares?" I would leave it alone, and encourage other adults to leave it alone too.
That's a really good question, Oliver Danni. And the truth is, I don't correct people when we're out and about and they comment on my cute little guy. And Yehva doesn't seem to notice at all, and she's not verbal enough yet to talk about her feelings about it in the abstract. She is very strong-willed, though, so if she realized someone was calling her a boy and it bothered her, she'd certainly say, "I not a boy! I a girl!" We know because she has said similar things, like, "I not your little sweetie, I Yebba!" And, honestly, we don't assume Yehva is a girl--she's the only one of our kids who has given any hint she might not be cisgendered, and we're not jumping to any conclusions, but until she confirms it, her being a girl is more like "well, she's probably a girl, so we'll go with that assumption until she lets us know we're wrong."
I wonder if my discomfort was more about how it was becoming a "thing," with the one teacher trying to get the other teacher to realize she was mis-identifying Yehva (or was she? who knows?), and, being a person who is very uncomfortable in any situation where there might be any hint of conflict, wanted to put an end to the discomfort? Or maybe it's like Heather said, and I was having a reaction to the possibility that my kid won't fit in and things might be hard for her.
On the one hand, I do want kids to be corrected, because the way Yehva dresses and has her hair cut is certainly one way that girls and women choose to present themselves, and it might be good for kids to see that. On the other hand, whatever's going on for her is totally no big deal to her right now, and it makes a lot of sense to choose not to turn it into one, and the other kids being constantly corrected (if that happens) could create an uncomfortable situation where there wasn't one before. I think I'll talk to the teacher about it and find out what she has seen happening in the classroom.
And once we get this sorted out, we can start dealing with Yehva being the only Black kid in her class, and one of only 2 I've seen in the whole school so far...
What an interesting discussion. When I was about Yehva's age I, a biologically female child who had been treated as female my whole life (though never particularly girly and most pictures of me as a toddler include red, green adn blue clothes more than pink) decided that I was a boy and my name was Robin. And I had a yellow dog named Ace. All of the adults in my preschool took this completely in stride. There were no arguments or any big deal made over it. By the time I was in first grade it was all forgotten and I am now a cisgendered, heterosexual woman - though still not particularly girly :) I am eternally grateful that no one made a big deal out of it one way or the other so that I could work out on my own without any one else's baggage to carry along with me.
i didn't know when my daughter was a baby that in the gender coding of the marketplace, red and blue coats, etc. are supposed to be for boys. i always picked red for her because it is my favorite color and i despise pink. but when she was little, i realized that people are either not paying attention, or they see what they want to see. we would be wheeling around the grocery store or wherever with her in her red and blue snowsuit topped by a head full of little black girl ponytails, barrettes, and assorted hair-pretties, and people would say "he's so cute!" and i would say "thank you" and keep right on rolling.
my 7-year-old daughter now wears a short afro, and between her pierced ears and batman shirts, other kids often ask her to clarify her gender. i have always made a selection of so-called "boy's" and "girl's" clothes available to her because i found the range of "girl's" clothes to be so limiting (and did i mention that i hate pink?). but my 5-year-old son has always been intersted in barbie and princesses because she is. i even prepared my husband for the possibility that our sons might want to wear things like princess dresses because of their older sister's influence.
i just try to expose my kids to variety and give them room to be who they are and hope for the best. if someone isn't sure about something and asks a question, we answer it. as long as nobody means her harm or is trying to hurt her feelings, i don't think that the misunderstandings will bother me.
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