I Finally Attend Kindergarten

I never went to kindergarten as a child. My mother believed that was just too young an age for me to be without her, so she homeschooled me instead and sent me off into the world when I was six. So logically, I quit my high-paying, perfectly acceptable job teaching high school for one in an educational setting I have zero experience in for a much lower salary. Did I mention that I’ve been scared of children ever since my cousin used to hit me as a toddler?

So far it’s actually been a great choice—children seem to like me, I’m no longer wistfully contemplating suicide, and it’s much more rewarding overall. There’s nothing like getting a hug from a four-year-old.

Or being punched in the stomach by one. One child I’ve had the privilege of dealing with announced on our first day together that he does not like teachers. He only likes mommy. The next day he decided he liked me and wanted to go home with me, only to dislike me again a little while later. It was weirdly reminiscent of my interactions with adult men.

Since then, he has alternately loved me and hated me depending on my willingness to let him do whatever he wants. I refused him a certain box of toys once, and as a result he kicked me, hit me, tried to bite me, threw something at my head, and chased me with a pair of scissors while saying, “I CUT YOU!”…Twice.

But for some reason I forget all of that when he runs up to me in the hall, says, “I like you,” and wraps his arms around my leg.

One thing I won’t forget, however, is the five-year-old who identified a picture of a dog as “a bitch”. I don’t know who taught him that and I don’t want to know, but nothing I ever heard in high school left me that speechless.

I hope this is one job I can stand without losing my sanity, which is worth the thinly veiled disappointment of my relatives. And somehow I think it might be, because there’s something really nice about hearing kids tell you that their mother is very fat and the teacher uses her phone when you aren’t in the room. It might even be worth getting sneezed on, drooled on, and physically assaulted. As long as no one pees on me, because that I am not okay with.