Celebrating Diversity in Preschool - The Power of Pink
I'm in a sour mood, Steemians. I don't feel like writing, but I've got a bug in my bonnet that I need to locate, retract and smash, i.e., something is occurring in preschool and I need to write. So I've had my coffee, and here's the story:
There's 35 children on the playground and teachers are positioned accordingly to safely observe. As I'm diligently scanning for mischief, a child approaches me and asks if he can use a bike without a helmet. Huh? We have tricycles on the playground and the kids need to wear a helmet. "You need a helmet to ride. The bin of helmets is right there," I say. He says, "Okay." He looks down at his shoes, kicks a rock, turns to walk away, sulks ...
Does he not see the bin? I walk towards it and say, "Here. Here's one. I can help." I unlatch the helmet and move towards him. As I move, he backs away. A look of anger covers his wee face. He shouts, "NO! I don't want that helmet!" Why is he so mad? I look down at the helmet in my hands, the last helmet in the bin, and it takes me a second.
The helmet is pink. Solid, pink.
There's no princess decals or sparkling stars. There's no bows, ribbons or even a butterfly. It's just pink. I look back at the boy. "C'mon, Ben. It's only a color." I stepped towards him. Now, the boy swings at the helmet, knocks it out of my hands, and screams, "No! That's a GIRL helmet!" Other teachers turn to look. He runs away. That boy went over to the picnic table, sat down with arms crossed over his chest, and didn't ride any bike that day. He didn't ride a bike over the color of a helmet? What is this all about? The boy is only four, so I sat next to him and asked why he couldn't wear the helmet. He could only say it was because the helmet was a girl helmet, and he's a boy. He's not a girl. What it said to me, as he spit out the word "girl" like it was a curse, was that anything related to the female for this young boy was lame and totally unnatural. But yet, as I looked around that playground, girls were wearing the blue helmets. Isn't blue considered a "boy" color? Why do girls not have a problem with blue, yet boys have such an issue with pink? It really hurt my feelings, as a girl myself, that he was so insulted by doing something like a girl.
Oh, this isn't the only story! Since I teach an at all-day preschool/daycare facility, we also work on potty training. So after nap, sometimes children have accidents. On this occasion, another boy woke up from nap wet. As I look through the scarce clothing bin (parents, PLEASE bring spare clothes to your teacher), you guessed it. The only pair of pants that would remotely fit this large preschooler were a purple pair. Well, toss that right up with the color pink because this boy would rather wear urine soaked clothing than put on a pair of purple pants. I had to call over the walkie-talkie to other classrooms to find this boy a color pant that was unrelated to the female. Again, no bells and whistles, just a soft, purple color on these sweatpants. And again, complete refusal.
Now here's the good story. Our facility has whacked out air conditioning in the warm months of summer. It gets very cold in my classroom in the afternoon. I don't mind, it's better than the 82 degrees in the classroom literally next door to my own. Parents, bring a sweatshirt for your child, and all will be well. Of course, a boy was dressed for the 95 degrees outdoors and he forgot his sweatshirt. Once again, I go to my scarce clothing bin, and dread fills my stomach. This sweatshirt is covered in My Little Pony. It is gray, but there is pink and rainbows and small little pom-poms embroidered on it. Pom-poms. I'm dead. I hold it up to the boy, hiding behind all it's female glory, stretched out my arms ready for him to snatch it and toss it to the ground, and softly say, "Is this pony shirt ok?"
Hope exists. He grabs it and says, "I don't care. I'm cold!" Now, this isn't the boy who enjoys dressing up and playing house all day. This is Rex. Rex is the boy who refers to himself as Hulk most days and is ALL typical boy. He doesn't give a shit. He's COLD. As he adorns the sweatshirt, a small group of boys (lead by the pink helmet boy) laugh at him. "Look! He has on a pony shirt!" Rex says, "I'm cold! And it's soft...feel it!" as he rubs his little arms. The other boy rubs the sweatshirt and giggles. They all go play in the block area. Done.
But as I analyze my observations and dig deep down inside, I get it. Being male relates to strength and power. Being female simply doesn't. For the young, maybe they relate being female to being weak, since they, themselves, are not strong enough yet to be men. Therefore, they must avoid all things that could diminish their manliness? I'm not sure and am still learning. But I'm also hopeful with the recent promotion of strong, female characters for our girls AND boys to see in books, movies, and even at home, that maybe they are learning that girls can be strong, too.
Because for every pink helmet kid, there is a pom-pom pony boy who doesn't care if it's for a boy or for a girl. He's confident in his blooming manhood, and he's simply cold and needs a sweatshirt to keep warm.
