When you're working with small children, there's a very
distinctive kind of dread caused by handling plastic food in the play kitchen
and discovering that it's soggy. There's also a particular relief in bending
down to pick up toys, catching a whiff of an anonymous diaper, and knowing
you're not the one who has to change it.
You're asked questions you never thought you would be,
like "Why do deaf people have ears?", and you explain to someone that
old black and white pictures didn't mean the world actually used to be in grayscale.
You see preschoolers in T-shirts that say "Single
and Loving It!" and wonder why there are clothes for little kids featuring
statements about dating. You wonder if it's fair to dress a child in a
proclamation they don't understand, then wonder if that's comparable to putting
a band T-shirt on a baby, and eventually conclude that band shirts lack the
presumptions of heteronormative and sometimes blatantly sexualized toddlers'
clothes, so you don't have to feel ambivalent about dressing your hypothetical
future baby in a Sonic Youth onesie. (Or maybe that's just me.)
And you're continually amused by the things that young
children get so emphatic about. The other day a four-year-old girl in the arts
and crafts area was vehemently resistant to the suggestion of putting glitter
on her cardboard unicorn ("Unicorns DON'T SPARKLE!!"), but insisted
that they do have tails made out of confetti.
Most of these things could also apply to being a parent,
but I don't know anything about that yet. I'm just loving working with them for
the time being.
At present, my life includes a lot of glue sticks and
hand sanitizer, and I come home glad to have spent time with the kids but
relieved that I can give them back at the end of the day.