The Parent Paper, 9/01/2003
I am Unique
I searched for my son's self-portrait and self-description among the stick figures, shaky handwriting and imaginative spelling. His assessment of himself was straightforward: "My name is Conner. I have three sisters, one brother, a dog named Sunny, and I like to play soccer."
I felt reasonably confident; I knew my son's academic and social skills generally met first grade standards. Nevertheless, I never feel completely relaxed before these school parent-teacher conferences: Who knows what might come up unexpectedly?
The teachers entered and invited me to sit at the child-sized chairs that surrounded the low reading tables. Mrs. Smith offered to begin our meeting, "Conner has had a wonderful start to the school year. His skills are terrific, and he gets along well with the other children."
"That's good to hear," I responded cautiously, hearing something in her tone of voice that made me wonder what she would say next. Mrs. Smith shifted in her chair, leaned forward, and stated with concern, "We've had an incident, however."
An incident! An incident! What is she talking about? "What happened?"
I responded uneasily while I tried to quickly reconstruct the fall and remember if my youngest son had seemed troubled. Had he been acting if something was bothering him? Had I been too preoccupied with the boisterous commotion of raising five children to notice anything unusual in Conner's behavior?
Mrs. Smith continued, "Your daughter and another fifth grade student came into our classroom the other day to make a speech about the school toy donation drive for the holidays. When they left, some of the other first-graders told Conner that his sister wasn't a girl; she was a boy. Conner seemed very uncomfortable about his classmates' comments," she finished in a rush of words. Mrs. Smith gazed into my eyes with concern.
That's all it was! "What makes you think Conner was uncomfortable?" I asked, in case I had missed something.
"He told the other children that his sister is a girl, but that she dresses like a boy because she's a tomboy," Mrs. Smith answered, still looking sincerely and directly into my eyes. Ms. Jones bobbed her head in agreement.
"Well, that's OK then," I said with relief. "Grace is a very good athlete. She wears jeans and a sweatshirt to school most days. She likes to keep her hair short, and she's frequently mistaken for a boy. It doesn't bother her, so it doesn't bother us, her family."
I relaxed after this explanation. No big issues to confront in this conference after all. Now we could get back to Conner.
But Mrs. Smith pressed on. She reached up and squeezed her own earlobes, "Maybe Grace could just wear little earrings . . ."
Enough is enough, I decided. I resisted the urge to point at the "I Am Unique" papers fluttering around our heads. "My husband and I don't believe in forcing people into stereotypes," I stated. "And we don't believe that other children or teachers should make Grace conform to stereotypes when she is comfortable with who she is."
Mrs. Smith and Ms. Jones let the subject drop, and we talked on for a few minutes about Conner before I thanked them and left.
On the drive home I reflected on the start of my son's first grade school year.
Not long before this conference, I'd been in Conner's room putting away clean clothes while he played. He told me that one of the boys in his classroom had dressed as a princess for Halloween. The boy told his classmates that he wished he'd been born a girl.
"What do you think about that?" Conner demanded of me.
"What do you think?" I lobbed back.
"I think he's a tomgirl," Conner stated decisively. "Is there such a word as tomgirl?" he mused, as he built with his Legos.
"I don't think so," I answered, "but it might be a good one. Do the other kids make fun of this boy?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said simply, still putting his Lego pieces together.
"Do you?" I asked quietly.
"No," he said just as quietly, but firmly.
"Good."