When I was Bo’s age, I was enrolled at a small preschool in Alamogordo, New Mexico. I had, by that point, ceased napping altogether, so “nap time” at preschool was agonizing for me. While everyone else rested, I desperately willed the clock to tick faster. Then, when that didn’t work, I’d try to wake up the person next to me. Why be bored if I didn’t have to be?
Sometimes, this tactic flew under the radar. I’d “whisper”, and the teachers ignored me — intentionally or unintentionally, I’ll never know.
Other times, my schemes were found out. I’d receive a stern rebuke, and if I didn’t mend my ways… I was sent to the principal’s office. (Yes, as a three-year-old.)
I actually remember one of those visits. I asked to play with the principal’s water-and-oil toy, but she denied my request and attempted to sternly admonish my recalcitrant behavior. I think I would have taken her more seriously if she hadn’t been fighting back laughter at my audacity.
Twenty-three years later, I have a three-year-old son to whom I have passed along the same audacity… and the world better watch out.
(For the record… no, that was not my last trip to the principal’s office.)
Taylor and I recently underwent a sacred rite of early parenthood: we sent our firstborn off to school for the very first time.
Now, admittedly, this transition was pretty minimal. Borealis is only enrolled for two mornings per week — a time commitment more commensurate with “lengthy playdate” than “formal education”.
Even so, I had a pretty hard time actually getting on board with the idea of preschool. Sure, I had done the legwork — researching our options, choosing a school, meeting with the head teacher, and filling out the registration paperwork — but my heart just wasn’t in it.
There are plenty of possible explanations for my reticence. Let’s address each of them in turn.
Reason #1: Almost all moms experience some sort of maternal separation anxiety upon sending their children to school. Your little baby is growing up, and it’s only a matter of time before he spreads his wings and leaves the nest.
Applicability: Low. I’ve never felt that Bo was my little baby who would stay with me forever. I’m already prepping for the day when he’s a professional engineer and calls me exactly once per week.
Reason #2: This is just the first of many years filled with blaring alarms, rushed mornings, and school-associated illnesses.
Applicability: Moderate. I hate morning obligations, and I’m already excited for the moment when my kids can drive themselves to and from school.
Reason #3: Our county decided that every student over the age of three has to wear a mask.
Applicability: High. (Warning: This is about to get a little preachy.)
I am stunned by American insistence that young children continue to wear masks. This insistence flies in the face of two major trends: 1) Covid is not a significant danger to preschoolers, and 2) the evidence of mask efficacy is convoluted, at best. Again, I’ll address each of these in turn. (Quickly, so that you understand our reasoning but don’t feel overly lectured.)
Trend #1: Based on the CDC’s data, preschoolers have a vanishingly small risk of Covid mortality. Of the ~20 million kids in the United States between the ages of one and four, Covid has killed fewer than sixty — total. This means that Covid accounts for about 1% of toddler deaths, which are much more often caused by car accidents or homicide. Additionally, while there is still an unquantified risk of long Covid, that risk appears to be incredibly low. For instance, fewer than thirty children under the age of four were hospitalized with Covid last week — and none of them died. In short: the world is full of major threats to children; Covid is simply not one of them.
Trend #2: There is little evidence that masks actually curb the spread of Covid among children. For anyone who has watched a child put on a shirt inside-out and backwards, this revelation comes as little shock.
[Note: Yes, of course there are articles that purport that “the science is conclusive”. However, I would highly recommend that the authors of those articles reexamine the requirements for a scientific conclusion: namely, in order to be proven effective, a mitigation measure must have its implementation compared to a true control group (i.e. a group with identical characteristics and methods, except for one independent variable). But, I digress.]
So, because of those two trends, I think it’s bad for little kids to wear masks in general, and I think it’s bad for Borealis to wear masks in particular.
If you don’t know that Bo had rather significant speech challenges, I would direct you to basically any of my posts from 2020. (But especially “D” as in “Rabbit”.) This issue has been on our radar for, like, ever. (As an update — Nova’s most recent assessment of Bo rated his current skills as below average, but now within the “normal” range.) Even so, his language development is something about which we still maintain a healthy concern.
Therefore, especially when he’s at such a critical stage in socioemotional and language development, I don’t want my kid wearing a mask, around other kids who are wearing masks, when none of those kids are at high risk from Covid.
[Note: Yes, the AAP authoritatively proposed a null hypothesis — that “not seeing faces” has the same effect on childhood language development as does “seeing faces”. But, that claim hardly passes the smell test, or even a cursory Google search for relevant peer-reviewed studies.]
And, finally, I don’t want Borealis to wear a mask while he is still in the midst of discerning the general hierarchy of safety culture. In short, elevating the importance of low-priority safety items necessarily obscures the importance of true, high-priority safety items. If everything is of #1 concern, then nothing is. (e.g. “Wait — which is more important when crossing the street: looking for cars, or wearing my mask?”) So let’s keep first things first.
(Ok, rant over.)
Anyway, all of that background is necessary to understanding my severe trepidation when, a week before preschool was set to start, the head teacher emailed that they would be enforcing Jeffco’s school mask mandate.
My initial reaction was, Absolutely not.
I immediately drafted an email rescinding Bo’s enrollment. This rash decision, however, was put on hold by the legitimate concerns of Taylor — and those of Nova, our family friend and speech pathologist. (She and Ernie happened to be visiting when I received the mask mandate email.)
Accordingly, I amended my response to communicate, I’m alarmed and upset, could we discuss this on the phone?
The head teacher, to her credit, accommodated our request. Taylor and I were able to chat with her the following afternoon, by which we discerned two major factors in the teacher’s reasoning: 1) My hands are tied by the county, and 2) We’re just trying to keep everyone safe.
The former reason resonated with me; the latter did not, for obvious reasons (see above rant). I concluded the conversation with the assurance that we would discuss and pray over our options, then let her know what we decided.
That night, on our way to a rare dinner out with friends, Taylor and I assessed the situation. Unfortunately, we had virtually no leverage against the school. That is, we could add no heft to this statement: If you make our kid wear a mask, then we’ll… — what?
Unenroll him? Leave a public comment on Jeffco’s site? (Which was, by the way, no longer accepting public comments.) Walk around naked for three years?
Thus, we narrowed our choices to two options: 1) pull Bo out of preschool, or 2) capitulate to the mask mandate.
We debated the merits of each position, but couldn’t circumvent Nova’s point that, as of right now, we have no way to socialize Bo outside of preschool. She pointed out that Bo’s success in school hinges on his ability to learn group-related socioemotional regulation and classroom etiquette — especially if we’re considering enrolling him in kindergarten a year early.
[Note: We are. The local charter school in which we are interested offers an early access program by which gifted children may enroll in kindergarten a year early — at four, rather than five. We still have no idea whether Borealis would qualify for this program, but seeking enrollment next year would give us an extra shot at receiving a lottery ticket into the school. It’s kind of like how requesting more food gives you an extra shot at receiving a lottery ticket into the Hunger Games… except, not quite the same.]
Anyway, all of our brainstorming did little to generate ideas as to how we could socialize our son outside of preschool. Where does one even go to find three- and four-year-olds, outside of those hallowed halls? Apparently, just Sunday school, where Bo receives a single hour of socialization per week. Just as church must be supplemented with Bible study, Sunday school must be supplemented with preschool. (And, you know, also with Bible study — but like, with a toddler Bible. The NKJV is a still little too dense for my kids.)
Finally, Taylor asked, “Look. You went to a super classical charter school — or whatever. But even so, was there ever stuff that your parents had to un-teach you? Like you came home and said something, and they were like, ‘No, that’s not quite right.’”
I laughed, because an example immediately came to mind. “Um, yeah. My fifth grade teacher had us chant, ‘The civil war was not about slavery.’ They were doing a big push to recast it as, like, *only* about states’ rights — so I came home and said that, and my dad was like, ‘Uh, that’s a misrepresentation of the facts.’”
Taylor: <grunts in amusement>
I laughed again. “Yeah. But, I think I get what you mean — that we’ll be un-teaching him things during the rest of his schooling, so….”
“Might as well start now,” he finished.
So that was that. We had reached an uncomfortable — but defensible — position: our firstborn would go to school, masked.… even if I didn’t like it.
That night, I sent an email to the head teacher to inform her that, despite my trepidations, we would leave our son enrolled in her school. Oh, and please change his preschool days from Tuesday/Thursday to Tuesday/Friday, because that’s way more convenient for us.
In her response, the head teacher confirmed that Borealis would be attending Ms. Gina’s pre-K class, on our requested days. I was mildly off-put by her typo: Bo, after all, would be going into Ms. Gina’s pre-school class. But, it seemed a harmless error, so I let it slide.
The next several days were spent prepping Borealis for his impending preschool introduction. He wasn’t surprised; after all, I had brought him to meet the head teacher earlier this summer, when we were first considering the school. But, there was still a lot more ground to cover, beyond the basic facts.
Reference, again, my reservations above: I hadn’t been 100% committed to Bo’s enrollment. So, as the summer drew to a close — but before we made the decision to keep him enrolled — I had become increasingly silent on the matter of preschool.
When Bo saw his school out the car window and exclaimed, “There’s my new school!” — I hummed indifferently. When Taylor asked, “Do you have a backpack for Bo?” — I nodded mutely. When my mother asked Bo, “Are you getting excited for preschool?” — I hushed her vigorously.
Therefore, when we finally alerted Bo to the impending start of preschool, we were less than a week away — which, I think, is still plenty of heads up for a toddler. We prepped him on wearing a mask (“Just like on the airplane!”) and on what he would bring: a backpack, a lunch box, and a water bottle. Thankfully, we already possessed each of these items: I just had to slap a masking-taped label on each.
The following Monday, Taylor took off work so that he could join us at the preschool open house. (Which was, somewhat inconveniently, scheduled from 9am to 11am. Great for the unemployed, but not ideal for our breadwinning spouses.) It was the first time I had worn a mask in months, and I was frosty with annoyance. Australis, of course, remained bare-faced.
The open house was disorganized in a way that made me nervous for the quality of my son’s education. However, I had a little grace for the teachers, since this school year was hardly back to “normal”.
We were supposed to go on a “scavenger hunt” and find a series of locations: the cubbies, the lunch table, the bathroom, the playground, etc. (Unsurprisingly, we spent the bulk of our time in the final two locations.) Taylor mostly led our search while I glowered petulantly and [sort of] kept Aza out of trouble.
At one point, the head teacher pulled me aside for a rather charged interaction in which we basically rehashed our previous conversation. So, I was pleasantly surprised when Ms. Gina, whom we were meeting for the first time, seemed to have a more relaxed disposition.
When Taylor asked what would happen if Bo took off his mask, she smiled and admitted, “Well, I would have to ask him to put it back on. But if he was, like, adamantly opposed, I wouldn’t wrestle it onto his face!”
[Note: Not every childcare worker feels this way.]
Taylor stayed near the doorway to continue his conversation with Ms. Gina, while I walked Bo and Aza over to the classroom’s play kitchen.
Shortly after we arrived, a girl slightly taller than Bo entered the classroom. Ms. Gina greeted her by name (Ana), then turned to talk to her parents. I glanced down at Bo and saw him staring at the new arrival with a huge grin on his face — a reaction that none of the other toddlers had received from him. I think Ana’s long, caramel-y waves and shimmery green dress had something to do with his change of heart.
My first thought was, Dude, she’s way out of your league. You’re like Raj — you can’t even talk to girls! But then I was like, Well… There’s a first time for everything.
As Aza continued to play with the kitchen toys, Bo kept sneaking glances back at Ana. Finally, I bumped him with my hip and asked, “What do you think of Ana?”
He just giggled in response.
I rolled my eyes, then prompted, “She’s very…?”
“Pretty!”
I smiled. “I think so, too.”
A minute later, Ms. Gina called us over to introduce the children. “Bo, this is Ana. She’ll be in your class, both Tuesday and Friday.”
Bo giggled again, so I nudged him and asked, “Is there anything you wanted to tell Ana?”
Bo hid his face again my leg and mumbled, “You’re pretty” — which I had to translate for his intended audience. Upon hearing his compliment, Ana paled and shrank back against her father.
“Oh, Bo, we appear to have similar luck in making friends,” I muttered.
Our little family left shortly thereafter, but not before I received a suspicious side-eye from Ana’s parents. Well, excuse me if I’m tryna raise my son to be chivalrous.
Taylor kissed us all goodbye, then reminded Bo, “We’ll be back here tomorrow! I’ll drive you here and drop you off on my way to work.”
Bo grinned in response. At least one of us was excited for the upcoming ordeal.
The following morning felt like we were sending our firstborn off to war.
We had prepared everything the night before: lunch, snack, water bottle, backpack, outfit, and even mask. Bo was fully prepped on the timeline, and yet… he seemed to be dragging his feet on every task.
Breakfast? A leisurely affair. Potty time? A chance to catch up on my favorite books. Departure time? Not before I organize the toys I’m leaving behind.
Finally, however, we had dressed both kids and shuttled them out the door for pictures.
“Ok, Bo first,” I decided. I ushered him over to the blue spruce that functions as the backdrop for all of our “good” photoshoots. After positioning him appropriately, I ordered, “Alright, stand there and smile.”
Bo sort of complied.
Satisfied (ish), I nodded to Taylor, who was holding our irritated daughter.
“Aza turn! Aza turn!” she shrieked — as though I was facilitating something more engaging than iPhone pictures. When Taylor set her down, she raced over to Bo and allowed him to take her hand.
I checked the time, then turned back to Taylor. “Ok, I think you have to go now.”
Taylor nodded, and Bo scrambled into the back of Daddy’s car while I attempted to keep Aza distracted with our wildflower garden.
Moments later, Taylor and Bo were pulling out of the driveway, and I was holding my screaming daughter to prevent her from running into the street after them.
“Aza come too! Aza come too!” she wailed.
Somehow, I hadn’t anticipated this part of the process. I had expected that *I* would feel some twinge of sadness when Bo left for preschool, but his obvious excitement left little room for remorse on my part.
What I hadn’t — but ought to have — anticipated was this: that my daughter — who has practically never been separated from her brother — would be devastated by his departure, and that his enthusiasm would do little to dull the sting of his [seeming] abandonment.
“Oh, baby,” I soothed, bouncing her in my arms. “Only Bo goes to preschool. Aza stays home with Mommy. We’re gonna have a good time.”
Aza looked up at me, teary-eyed. “Bo come back?”
For a moment, I was torn. I could still call Taylor and have him bring my son home. We’d tell Ms. Gina that we had changed our minds, and that Bo would attend school next year. Then, my daughter would have her brother back… but he would be a very, very disappointed brother. Bo wouldn’t be content to stay home just so his sister had her favorite playmate, all the time.
I sighed, then answered, “No, Aza girl, he’s going to stay at preschool for a while — until after lunch. And then Mommy and Aza will go get Bo!”
I set my daughter back down on the sidewalk while she collected herself. After a minute, she announced, “Go for a walk.”
“Uh,” I answered lamely. I wished I had put on a bra, but my daughter was already on the move. I reluctantly joined her and hoped that we wouldn’t run into any neighbors in my current state of undress. (Don’t worry — we only encountered three.)
After our walk, we made leisurely trips to Home Depot, then Goodwill, and finally King Soopers. For the first time in her life, Aza had an extended taste of what it would be like to be an only child: 100% of Mommy’s attention, no sibling stealing her toys and/or kicking her, and significant control over where we went and what we did. [Note: It says something about my stinginess that my children choose such mundane locations for “special” outings.] Even better — Aza realized that, with Bo gone, she was able to ride in his forward-facing toddler carseat.
[Note: Aza qualifies to have a forward-facing seat, but manufacturers suggest that toddlers remain rear-facing, if possible — as long as they’ll tolerate it, up to a certain height/weight. However, we are rapidly approaching the limits of Aza’s height, weight, and tolerance, so hers will soon become forward-facing as well — probably in the next several months.]
The morning passed by in a blur, and soon it was time for us to pick up Bo. We parked outside of the school a few minutes early, and I chatted with another mom while we waited for the doors to be opened. We discovered that our children were in different classes, which (for some reason) prompted her to ask, “Well, how old is your son?”
“Three-and-a-half, as of last weekend,” I answered.
The other mother eyed me oddly. “Weird. My daughter, too. I guess they must have two classes of three- to four-year-olds.”
I shrugged, because I had very little idea how the preschool was set up. I had thought that the head teacher only taught the older students, but clearly she also took on some younger ones.
Finally, I glanced at the clock and suggested, “Should I just ring the doorbell? It’s 12:32.”
The other mom agreed, so I rang the bell and was glad when Ms. Gina appeared moments later. I begrudgingly donned my mask and led Aza inside to retrieve her brother. He waited for us at the top of the stairs, and even under his mask, it was clear that he was grinning from ear to ear. He threw out his arms and wrapped Aza in a hug, then embraced me as well.
“He was great,” Ms. Gina said. “He seemed to have a lot of fun, and I think he’ll warm up to the other kids soon.”
“Oh, so you mean he’s got an engineer’s social skills?” I quipped.
Ms. Gina laughed, but not in the way that says, Oh, I know exactly what you mean. More like in the way that says, Oh, that’s kind of a harsh thing to say.
I sighed and shuttled my kids back to the car.
This was undeniably a special occasion, so we stopped in town for frozen yogurt. On the way, Bo and Aza took a moment to pose for the cover of their next EP.
The whole way to and from the froyo shop, Bo chattered about his day at preschool… and mostly, about one person. He had played on the playground — with Ana; he had washed his hands — with Ana; he had eaten lunch — with Ana; etc. My maternal Spidey senses started to tingle.
“Bo, did you play with anyone else at school?” I asked at one point.
He thought for a few seconds, then answered, “No, just Ana.”
This gave me even greater concern. If Ana was desirous of Bo’s friendship, then all this coordinated playtime was good; if not, however, then my son probably came across like an artless stalker. I decided to keep these reservations to myself, and summarized my thoughts with the suggestion, “Well, I think you should try really hard to make friends with the other kids in your class, too.”
Bo shrugged. “Nah. I just want to be friends with Ana.”
Well, I had tried.
Wednesday and Thursday passed quickly, as they always do: with an overnight visit to my parents’ house in Colorado Springs, and then a kids’ playdate with our babysitter while Taylor and I attend Bible study.
However, this week was different in one major way: Bo’s near-constant chatter about Ana. “Ana likes the slide. Ana has long hair. Ana ate her lunch.”
His interest was even more obvious when he sang the class welcome song (to the tune of Frère Jacques):
“Where is Ana, where is Ana,
Here I am! Here I am!
We’re so glad to see you, we’re so glad to see you,
At our school, at our school.”
I asked if he remembered the names of any of his other classmates. Once again, he thought for a few seconds, then answered, “No, just Ana.”
That Thursday night, I lay in bed and asked Taylor, “Do you think we need to be worried? About his fixation on Ana?”
Taylor: <grunts pensively> “No, I don’t think so. He’ll make friends with the other kids soon enough. I think it’s just really overwhelming for him to think about making friends with all of them, all at once. You know how he hates big social events… or even how I hate big social events.”
I nodded. I can hold my own in a crowd much better than either Taylor or Bo can, which limits my ability to understand their perspectives. “Ok, so, do you think preschool is too much for him, then?”
“No, he just has to break it down into bite-sized pieces. I do the same thing. This week, it’s becoming friends with Ana; next week, it’ll be one of the other kids.”
This assessment made sense to me and calmed the worst of my concerns. If Taylor was right, then Bo would naturally grow out of his intense interest in Ana, and would branch out into other social connections, too. It was, after all, why we were sending him to preschool in the first place. I can teach him how to read, but I can’t teach him how to be friends with nonexistent peers.
Suddenly, I realized something about those peers. “Hey — did you know that not all the three-and-a-half-year-olds are grouped together?”
Taylor: <grunts curiously>
“Yeah, I met a mom today whose daughter is the same age as Bo, but she’s in the other class.”
Taylor: <grunts in contemplation>
I yawned. “Yeah… I guess I’m not totally sure how they break it up.”
Taylor: <grunts in sleepy ambivalence>
I nestled against Taylor’s back and drifted toward sleep — until, in one moment, I was suddenly wide awake. “Oh no!” I breathed.
Taylor: <grunts in confusion>
I sat up in bed and reached for my phone. I searched for a few seconds, then sighed. “It wasn’t a typo.”
By this point, my cryptic behavior had effectively roused Taylor. “What’s going on?”
I collapsed back in bed. “Ms. Gina doesn’t teach the younger kids — she teaches the older kids. Bo is actually in pre-K. It wasn’t a typo.”
Taylor: <grunts in surprise> “Well, that would explain while all of his classmates are taller than him: they’re all a year older.”
“How did this happen?” I fretted. “Isn’t he going to be disadvantaged by being the youngest in his grade?”
Taylor snorted. “Uh, aren’t you the one who wants to put him in kindergarten a year early?”
“No! Well, yes — wait. I want to apply for kindergarten a year early, but I haven’t decided whether we’ll actually enroll him!”
Taylor shrugged. “This is great practice, then. I wonder how they knew, though. Did you tell the head teacher about our kindergarten plans when you went in for the tour?”
I cast back in my memory, but couldn’t recall all the content of our conversation. “Ugh, I can’t remember. I think maybe? I told her about his number correspondence, and she asked him to count things and identify colors and stuff.”
“So you think he was smart enough to get bumped up a grade?”
I sighed. “Maybe? I mean, this was like, two months ago. He was literally still transposing his pronouns, so it’s not like he conveyed, you know, I’m a super good candidate for early access to pre-K. I mean, his speech and reading and stuff has come so far in just the past few months… but if these other kids are a full year older than him, that’s a huge leg up for them.”
Taylor paused, then confirmed, “So, you didn’t ask them to put him in pre-K, rather than preschool?”
“No. I was going to ask to have him moved up to pre-K at the semester, in prep for kindergarten next year. I had no idea that he was going straight in.” I groaned, then added, “Ugh, I feel awful, like we’re just setting him up for failure.”
Taylor chuckled, then concluded, “No. He’s gonna do awesome. The teachers chose to put him in pre-K, so we’re going to trust their judgment. Can you do that?”
I thought for a long time, then finally answered, “Maybe.”
“Good enough.”
The next morning, Taylor and Bo left for preschool, and Aza was once again totally distraught.
Eventually, however, she calmed down, and we went for another morning walk. (I had learned my lesson and donned a bra, this time.)
I, meanwhile, hadn’t calmed down — although, I tried to keep my emotions from affecting Aza. I was still upset by the realization that my son was surrounded by four-year-olds, and I couldn’t shake the image of poor Borealis being dwarfed by toddlers who towered over him in height and speech ability.
My mind kept wandering back to my son, but I did my best to make it a fun morning for Aza. We spent our time reading, playing, and running errands. In seemingly no time at all, we were pulling into the preschool parking lot to retrieve Bo.
I left the car running and took the keys with me. (One of the perks of driving an old police car!) I didn’t want to stage a confrontation about the preschool/pre-K thing, so I merely flashed Ms. Gina a quick smile, then hustled Bo back to the car. Aza squawked in annoyance at being left out of the fun — and, probably, at being relegated to her own carseat.
On the way home, I asked Bo, “How was preschool?”
“Good!” he said — the quintessential monosyllabic response.
“What did you do there?”
“Um… I played on the playground, and I ate my lunch, and I played with my friends.”
“Oh? Who did you play with?”
“Just Eliana.”
“Oh, is that Ana’s full name?”
“Yes. She’s my favorite friend at preschool.”
“Yeah, I figured,” I muttered — only, Bo wasn’t finished.
“And I touched Ana’s belly, and she asked me to stop, and then I did.”
I was not expecting this confession. “Uh — what!? Can you elaborate?”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Bo shrug, then explain, “We were in the bathroom.”
“Not better!” I snapped. “Oh, my goodness, Borealis. It is not alright to touch people’s bodies without permission. That’s a life rule.” Especially for males, I thought. Great — this kid’s gonna be sued before he turns four.
Bo was quiet, and I could tell that he had not been expecting my reaction. I took a deep breath to reign in my fear/annoyance/frustration, then said, “I am glad that you stopped touching her belly when she asked you to stop.”
Bo mumbled something incoherent in response, then silently gazed out the window for the rest of our drive. Aza, of course, fell asleep in her carseat.
When we got home, I transferred my sleeping daughter into her bed, then let Bo watch four songs of Little Baby Bum. As he did so, I quickly drafted the following email.
Hi Ms. Gina —
Just now, on the way home from preschool, Bo told me something potentially alarming. He said that today at preschool, he touched Ana’s belly, and that she asked him to stop. According to Bo, he then stopped.
Did you witness this exchange? If so, was it a single incident (i.e. he touched her belly, she told him to stop, and that was the end of it)? Or was it a pattern (i.e. he bothered her the whole morning)?
I reinforced to Bo that it is not alright to touch people without their permission, but this is a relatively new concept for him. Are there any additional aspects of this rule that we should be teaching at his age? And, does Bo owe Ana an apology? (Or do we owe her parents an apology?)
Thank you for your time and explanation, and if it would be easier to discuss this on the phone, please feel free to call me.
Best,
Holly
I sent the email with no hope of receiving a response before evening. After all, not every child left Ms. Gina’s care at midday. In the meantime, I needed to speak to Taylor. I hid in the kitchen and communicated the situation to him in low notes — although, if Borealis was paying attention, I’m sure he knew what we were discussing. I could only do so much to keep him from feeling guilty.
“So what should I do!?” I asked Taylor. “Do I need to track down Ana’s parents? Do we need to pull him out of preschool?”
“No, Wifey. Believe it or not… this is the sort of stuff that’s important for him to learn at preschool. Like, what’s ok and what’s not ok.”
I tried and failed to hold back tears. “I just… This is exactly what I was worried about, with the whole pre-K-vs.-preschool thing. Like, probably all the other kids in his class would never do this! Because they all went to preschool first, where you learn not to touch people’s bellies!” I groaned, then concluded, “I just feel like I’ve failed him so much.”
Taylor sighed deeply. “Babe, I can understand why you’re upset, but you have not failed him at all. I think that this situation was probably less of a big deal than you think it was. You know how honest Bo is: he would have told you if he was touching her belly all day. And he’s not malicious, so it wasn’t like he was attacking her or anything. We’ll see what Gina says, and go from there.”
I hated being told to “just wait”, but Taylor’s advice made sense. I ended the call and resolved to be kind and attentive to Bo… even though he could definitely tell that I was still upset. After only a few minutes, my son cocked his head to the side and observed, “I think you look sad.”
I sighed, then pulled him onto my lap for a hug. “I am sad, Bo. It’s not good to touch other people’s bodies without permission, even if they’re our friends. I want you to grow up into a good man, like Daddy, and that means being respectful of other people’s privacy.”
Bo looked at me solemnly, then glanced away. “I need some honey milk.”
And that’s about as far as we ever get in a serious conversation.
I checked my email throughout the afternoon and was relieved to find this response from Ms. Gina, shortly before 5pm.
Hi Holly,
Before lunch the children use the restroom to wash their hands and Bo was standing next to Eliana (along the wall). She did say stop to Bo. It was the only occurrence today. Thank you for contacting me and talking with Bo. Talking with him about it and what he can do differently will aid in fostering his social and emotional development. I will keep an eye on it. I don’t feel that an apology is necessary as Eliana and Bo worked it out themselves. After, they ate lunch sitting at separate tables and neither said anymore about it.
Regards,
Ms. Gina
This response relieved some — but not all — of my anxiety. I realized that, in the back of my mind, I had been hoping that Ms. Gina would say something like, Bo is my best student! What great parents he has! This is a complete misunderstanding — we were just playing a game of touching each other’s bellies!
I realized that my hope was foolish, but I still wanted some assurance that Bo was in the right place — the right class, with the right teacher and right friends. Was it just unbearably obvious that he was the youngest? Or that his parents were incompetent? I felt like Bo’s actions were somehow an indictment of both his personality and our parenting — even despite Ms. Gina’s email.
Several minutes later, Taylor arrived home to find two children in moderate spirits and one wife in low spirits. From the couch, I looked up at him piteously and whimpered.
“Oh, Wifey,” he laughed. “It’s not that bad!”
“It feels that bad!” I cried. “It feels like we’re gonna get kicked out of polite society!”
Taylor laughed again. “No, no, no. This is just the first of these situations, and they’re probably gonna get a lot worse. He didn’t break anyone’s arm… this time around.”
“Ugh! You are not helping!” I moaned and buried my head in a pillow. “I’m just gonna homeschool forever.”
Taylor gently pushed me to a sitting position. “Babe… what do you think ‘socialization’ means?”
“Like, learning how to live in society, with other people. What’s ok and what’s not.”
“Exactly. And, like, can you think of any learning that takes place without mistakes?”
I looked down at my lap. “Um, no.”
“Yeah. So can you have grace for Bo’s mistakes? He’s learning.”
I surveyed my firstborn, who seemed so old and so young, all at once. “No, of course — I just… feel like it’s my mistake, and not his. And it’s harder to have grace for myself.”
Taylor wrapped me in hug, then pulled Bo and Aza into our embrace. They both immediately squirmed out and raced away. Taylor chuckled, then concluded, “It’s not that bad. I’ll talk to Gina on Tuesday, and we’ll get this all sorted out.”
My concerns faded over the next several days, and by the time Taylor drove Bo to pre-K on Tuesday, I was pretty confident we wouldn’t be sued by Eliana’s parents.
Aza and I were midway through our morning walk when I got a call from Taylor. “Yes?” I answered expectantly.
“Hey, Wifey,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I just had a great chat with Gina. You wanna hear about it?”
I snorted, “Yes, obviously!”
“Well, first off, she told me what she remembered about the belly-touching incident. She said that the kids were lined up against the wall, waiting to wash their hands, and Bo and Ana were standing next to each other, and he touched her belly — over her shirt, not under! — and then Ana was like, ‘Stop!’ So he stopped and put his hands behind his back — but then Ana kept saying, ‘Stop! Stop!’ over and over again, way after Bo had stopped and moved away from her.”
This was an unexpected twist. “So… she just kept yelling at him?”
Taylor sighed. “Yeah, Gina said that sometimes she does that, so… not that Bo was allowed to touch her belly, but if she hadn’t — I mean, it sounds like she kind of overreacted? — so basically, if she had just asked him once to stop, then he might not have even thought to tell us about it.”
I pondered that for a moment. “Yeah, I can see that. Like her repetition made it really stick out to him, and that’s why he told us.”
“Exactly. And you know what I just remembered? I think Ana — wait, apparently she actually wants to be called Eli-ana — anyway, I think I remember what she was wearing on Friday. It was a shirt with a sequined unicorn on the front. You know those sequins that change color when they change direction?”
The official term is “flip sequins”, and of course I knew about them. More importantly, so did Bo. “Wait — so you think he was touching the unicorn on her shirt — not her belly, per se?”
“Well, I’m not 100% sure that that’s what she was wearing, but I think so. I mean, we’ve seen him show an interest in shiny stuff, but when has he ever had a desire to touch bellies, specifically?”
I thought for a few seconds. “Honestly, never. But, there’s a first time for everything.”
“True.”
“Actually…” I realized. “In that case, it’s possible that Ana wasn’t even upset about his touching her belly. She might have been more upset about his messing up her unicorn.”
Taylor let out a breath, and I could hear his relief. Our son wasn’t an aggressor; he wasn’t a stalker; he was just a kid.
“So, there’s actually more that Gina said,” Taylor continued. “Because I asked if Bo was a good fit in her class, or if we should move him to preschool, instead. And she was really surprised that I was even asking. She was like, ‘Uh, no, he fits in perfectly with this group. There’s no area in which he’s obviously behind the others.’”
I smiled, then amended, “Except height.”
Taylor chuckled. “Well, he’ll catch them someday, if our genetics ever kick in. But yeah, I was just so glad to hear that she thinks he’s in the right place, even though he’s younger. She actually sounded, like, really happy to have him in her class. I think… I think it’s the right choice, even though we kind of didn’t get a say in the matter.”
I laughed. “I mean, hopefully it is. Hopefully, he’s inspired by being around older kids, and he’ll learn good habits from them. Although, right now, I think the only kid he’s learning from is Ana.” I paused, then corrected, “I mean, Eliana.”
“Actually…” Taylor began. “That brings up another point. Apparently, your son has requested that his friends no longer call him ‘Bo’.”
I startled. “What? What would they call him, then?”
Taylor snorted. “What you named him: Borealis.”
I groaned. All these years cultivating a cool nickname, gone in a single week. Finally, I concluded, “Well… that is his right.” <pause> “But man, is he gonna hate us in middle school.”
[Author’s Note: As Taylor predicted, Bo has branched out and made friends with other members of his class. Even so, he and Eliana have maintained a close-ish friendship — and a relatively balanced one, at that. It seems that their shynesses mesh well.
But, he hasn’t backed down from the choice to go by his full name. We’ll see how long it takes.]