Little Boy’s favorite friend at pre-school for the past 4 months is DY, the revered only child of Korean immigrants. As far as I can tell, their mutual affection is based on their love for chasing each other at the playground as well as an amateur interest in dinosaurs. It is a solid friendship, as demonstrated one day during pick-up when Little Boy and DY were leaving at the same time. DY was walking with his mother to their car in one direction and Little Boy was walking with me in the opposite direction. They had already said goodbye, but suddenly DY broke away from his mother and ran towards us on the sidewalk, calling Little Boy’s name, and Little Boy turned and ran towards DY. When they met, they hugged briefly and then both ran back to their respective mommies, waving at each other the whole way. It was the cutest pick-up moment ever.
Me, I like DY, who plays nicely. Earlier this year, Little Boy idolized two other boys who, according to Little Boy, would sometimes hit or push him while playing. “But why do you like them if they hurt you?” I would ask. This seemed to stump him, and I wrote it off as typical three-year old boy playground romping. Then one day, our personalized weekly parent communication letter (which had always been glowing re: Little Boy), the teacher wrote “We are working on making good independent choices rather than imitating the sad choices of our friends.” This chilled me. Little Boy was getting in with a bad crowd!
But then these two boys moved into an older classroom and a bunch of younger kids (including DY) moved into his classroom, and no more bad preschool behavior manifested. Little Boy is both a teacher’s dream and the boy who all the boys want to chase on the playground. We’ll see what happens when Little Boy moves into the older classroom (with his two older friends) in a few weeks.
Last week, one morning during drop-off as I was hugging Little Boy goodbye, a girl in his class came to me and said “Little Boy and DM [not DY but another boy who is the only other black child in the class] have the same hair!” (It is not the first time a child at the school has made race-related comments to me about Little Boy. Months ago, a boy asked me why Little Boy and I don’t “look the same.” I was tongue-tied and pretended not to hear him. It’s the sort of question I didn’t think I had to prepare an answer for until kindergarten; to offer a simple on-the-fly explanation to a 3-4 year-old was overwhelming. Since then, I have resolved to address any similar inquiries by smiling and saying “Yes, he’s much shorter than me, isn’t he?” I have about a year and a half to come up with less glib response for his kindergarten classmates.)
But I could handle the girl who commented about Little Boy having the same hair as the other black child. “Yes, and you have the same hair as R!” I said, pointing to another little girl with wavy, dirty blond hair. “And I have the same hair as Miss M!” I said, pointing to a teacher who has straight brownish hair with highlights. “Isn’t it cool that people can have the same hair? Or different hair?” It was a bit nonsensical, but I smiled at her and she smiled back.
Then, the same day during pick-up, another little boy (whose mother is actually black herself, but who has his father’s fine Caucasian hair) said the exact thing to me: “Little Boy and DM have the same hair!” That’s when I realized that this was a recurring “thing” in the classroom. Little Boy looked a little upset to hear this said again. Because the underlying sentiment is not that he has the same hair as DM, but that they have different hair than everyone else.
There were about 4 other kids listening to this and I was just about the launch into my “yes, and you have the same hair as…” speech when DY ambled over to Little Boy and put his hand on his shoulder. “Little Boy and I have the same shirt!” he said, pointing to Little Boy’s white shirt and then his own white shirt. I think all the talk about Little Boy and DM having the same hair made him jealous!
Little Boy immediately broke out into a smile, as did I. “Oh yes, yes you do!” I agreed, and Little Boy and DY gave each other goodbye hugs and we were off to the car. That kid is my favorite friend, too!
