by Jen Mann
“Hold on!” the co-president said. “Why do you want a refund? What’s the matter?”
“She says I can’t be in the Red Group,” I whined like a toddler. “There’s only room in the Orange Group and they meet on Fridays, which is a terrible day for me, because I’m a Realtor—here’s my card—and Fridays are the absolute worst day for me.”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t she be in the Red Group?” the co-president asked the playgroup warden.
“It’s full,” she said.
“Full? I didn’t realize our playgroups had limited spaces.”
“They can and they do.”
“I’m sorry, Jen, my kids are in school, so I’m not as involved in the playgroups as I used to be. I stick around for the Moms’ Night Out stuff,” the co-president said to me.
“You’ve known about this problem. We’ve discussed it at our board meetings,” the playgroup warden said. (Yeah, they have a board of directors and shit. They’re serious about their playgroups.) “I told you that the Wednesday playgroup is the most popular and several of our members have asked me to limit the number of members because their children become overstimulated.”
“Oh, right, I sort of remember that now. Well, isn’t there room for one more in the Red Group? Jen can’t make the Orange Group work for her schedule.”
“No, there isn’t. If I make an exception for her, I’d have to make it for others.”
“Maybe someone from the Red Group would move to Orange?” the co-president tried.
“No one would move from Red to Orange,” the warden said, looking horrified.
She confirmed what I was thinking: overstimulated kids my ass, this was all about the “right kind” of moms. The Red Group was obviously the “cool moms.” Suddenly I had no desire to be in the Red Group anymore.
“Just out of curiosity, how do you get to be in the Red Group?” I asked.
“It’s based on seniority. There was an original group that typically met on Wednesdays, and then we’ve added just a few to our group over time as spaces have opened up. The moms pick who they would like to join and extend an invitation. It’s just easier that way.”
“How is that easier?” I asked.
“Because then they know exactly who will be joining their group, rather than some random person off the Internet.”
“Like me.”
“Well, it’s true that we don’t know you—or your son,” she added, like he might be the problem.
Suddenly I felt compelled to defend Gomer. “He’s vaccinated and he’s not a biter or anything like that!”
“Oh, I’m sure he isn’t. Just know that the Red Group really isn’t a place for newcomers. We’re very close, and even our husbands are close. It’s a solid group. The Orange Group is a better fit for you,” the warden explained.
“You know what? Never mind. I’m going to find something else for me and Gomer to do. We don’t need to do this.” I started fumbling with my purse to get my car keys so I could leave. I was furious. Who did this bitch think she was, telling me that her playgroup was full?
“Hold on,” the co-president said. “Maybe we could start another Wednesday playgroup? Maybe there are enough people who would be interested in having another group? Would that be okay with you, Jen? Would you stay if I could find some people to do that?”
I stopped what I was doing and I listened to her. She wasn’t so bad. She was actually trying to make it work, while the warden just kept saying no, no, no, no!
“I think that would be fine. I just want to find some friends for my son, and I’d prefer that it be on a Wednesday,” I said.
“Great. No problem. I’ll find some people.”
“I’m not sure I have time for that—,” the warden started.
The co-president cut her off. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
And she did.
Within a week I had a playgroup to attend with Gomer. I think we were called the Blue Group.
I was still so pissed off about the whole Red Group/Orange Group thing that I had a really hard time being nice to the warden anytime I saw her after that. It made me wonder how many other women in the group she’d treated like shit. I was lucky, because the co-president had been around to see what was happening and she took over, but I could only imagine how many times that same conversation went down in private without anyone reining in that control freak.
Why the fuck did she have to make it so damn difficult? All I wanted was to find my kid a friend to play with on a day of the week that worked best for me. What the hell? Was I getting caught up in the Mommy Wars I’d heard so much about? This was my first foray into the world of WAHMs and SAHMs. But then I realized it wasn’t a Mommy War; I’d just come across a plain old bitchy mom.
Over the next couple of years I worked my way up the rungs of power until I was elected co-president of the group. Can you guess what my first order of business was? Yup—I axed the membership limits for the Red Group and the Orange Group and the Blue Group and any other playgroup I could find. I opened them all up to everyone.
After all, I didn’t want a group going to meet hot firemen without me!
When the Hubs agreed to move to suburbia with me, his biggest concern for our future children was diversity. Or rather, the lack thereof.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Hubs is Chinese and I am not, so our kids are biracial. The Hubs was worried that living in such a white-bread place, our kids could be victims of racism and bullying.
I had spent three long, hard years going to high school in this town, and I knew firsthand what he was afraid of. Because of that, I was always on high alert looking for Gomer and Adolpha to be discriminated against.
When Gomer was three, I opened up his peer circle beyond the Blue Playgroup and enrolled him in preschool. It was a peer modeling program where half the class were peers and the other half were kids with special needs. This type of classroom was supposed to teach him leadership skills, empathy, and understanding. I had visions of his days being filled with everyone sitting around singing “Kumbaya” and painting rainbows.
I noticed all was not right one day when I picked him up after school. Gomer has always been a child who loves to chat in the car. I find out the best stuff in the car. Sometimes I even go around the block just one more time so I can get to the end of a good story. That day was no different.
“How was school today?” I asked.
“It was okay,” he sighed.
“Just okay? Why’s that?”
“We didn’t get enough time to play outside.”
“Oh yeah? Recess is fun, huh?”
“Yeah, and this week we started a new game that we like. We didn’t want to stop today.”
“What game? Is it one that Ms. Rebecca made up?”
“No. It’s one that Oscar made up. Ms. Rebecca doesn’t even know we play it.”
“How do you play?”
“Well, we are all good guys and we chase the big dark monster.”
“Hmm, that sounds interesting. Why are you chasing the big dark monster?”
“Because he’s bad. He’s dark. And bad.”
“I see. How do you decide who the big dark monster is?”
“Oh that’s easy. It’s always Sharu.”
“What?” I felt myself jerk the steering wheel. Sharu was another peer model in the class. He was Indian and very dark-skinned. “What do you mean, he’s always the dark monster?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from squeaking. Oh my God! What the hell, Gomer?
“Well, Oscar says Sharu has to always be the big dark monster because his skin is so dark.”
The wheel jerked again and I almost drove off the road this time. Shit! Are you kidding me? By this time I was in our neighborhood, and I pulled to the curb, where I could park. I turned in my seat and faced what, up until now, I had always thought was my sweet, innocent, open-minded, unbiased child.
“Gomer, you can’t always make Sharu the bad guy,” I scolded him.
“But we have to. He’s so dark,” Gomer emphasized.
“Gomer! That is terrible. Tell me exactly how you play this game.”
“Well, me and Oscar and Brice chase Sharu around the playground. We have to catch him and put him in jail. If he catches us first, though, he turns our skin dark and then we’re bad guys.”
My heart was racing. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. WTF? The Hubs is going to kill me when he hears this. He’ll make us move back to New York. I can’t go back. I just can’t. I can’t live in a two-bedroom apartment with my kids. We can’t afford private school. I can’t live with my in-laws. I can’t go back to an office job. I have to fix this!
“So you and Oscar and Brice are always good?”
“Yes, because we’re white. Sharu isn’t. So he’s bad. People with dark skin are bad.”
Holy shit! My child is a racist!
“Gomer!” Stay calm, I thought. “Why would you say such a thing? Where did you hear this? We’ve never taught you that before!”
“Oscar told us. He said that he likes Spider-Man, and dark Spider-Man is bad.” Stupid superheroes!
“Gomer, I don’t know anything about Spider-Man, but I can tell you that Spider-Man has nothing to do with real people. You can’t say that all dark people are bad. Look at Daddy. He isn’t white. Is he bad?”
“No, because you make him okay. Oscar says that Daddy’s okay because you’re not dark. You make Daddy better.” Wow, Oscar has a whole lot of theories, doesn’t he? I can’t wait to call his mother and have this conversation!
“Gomer, does Oscar not like anyone who isn’t white?”
“I think so. He doesn’t like Nikhil, either.” Nikhil was another Indian boy in the class. He was in a wheelchair. “But he won’t let Nikhil play because he can’t run.”
So much for my empathetic and understanding child! What the hell was he learning at school?
“Gomer, this is an awful game you’re playing and I forbid you to play it anymore,” I told him.
“Why?”
“Because you’re telling Sharu that he’s bad because his skin is dark.”
“You mean because he’s not white.”
“Gomer, stop saying that!” Suddenly I realized there was a disconnect with him. “Gomer, you do understand that you’re not white, either, right?” Ever since Gomer was a baby we’d been telling him that he was half Caucasian and half Chinese. This information should not have been a surprise to Gomer, yet it appeared to be. Apparently we had not done a very good job explaining his ethnicity to him.
His face turned red, his eyes scrunched up, and he wailed, “That’s not true!”
“Gomer, stop that. Of course it’s true! What’s wrong with you? You know that you’re half Chinese!”
“Oscar says I’m not. Oscar says I look like I’m white, so I don’t have to be a big dark monster. If I’m half Chinese, then Oscar won’t play with me.”
“Well, you know what? Oscar sounds like a terrible person, so I think not playing with him is a good idea anyway.”
That night I called the teacher and told her about the game the boys were playing. Ms. Rebecca is one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever leave your kids with, but she refuses to believe the worst about anyone.
“Sometimes this happens in preschool,” she explained. “The kids are learning to sort. They sort bricks and toys, and sometimes they sort people, either by hair color or by skin color. It’s just a stage they go through.”
“I don’t think this is a stage, Rebecca. They’re excluding a child because of his skin color! That’s racism.”
“They’re three, Jen. They don’t even know what racism is.”
“They do if they’ve been taught that at home. I want the number for Oscar’s parents. I want to speak to them.”
“They’re on the do-not-share list. They want their number kept private.”
“Are you kidding me? Of course they do, because they know their kid is a little shit!”
“I can ask the counselor to send home some book titles that might help you and Gomer work through this together.”
“I don’t want books from the counselor! I want to speak to Oscar’s parents.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t share their information with you.”
“Fine. Then I at least want Oscar to be kept away from Gomer.”
“There are only twelve kids in the class. How can I do that?”
“I don’t know, but I want this game stopped.”
“Jen, it’s good for them to have imaginative play.”
“Rebecca, not like this!”
“Sharu hasn’t complained.”
“That’s because he’s three! He doesn’t realize what’s happening. Look, I’m coming up to the school tomorrow with Gomer and I’ll put an end to it if you won’t.”
The next day I went to class with Gomer. I quickly realized that Oscar knew exactly what he was doing. It wasn’t a game that he played just on the playground, he played it all day long.
“No one share markers with Sharu,” Oscar whispered to his classmates around the table. “He’s a big dark monster.”
When he saw me glare at him, he doubled down. At the circle rug he said, “Whoever sits by Sharu will be a big dark ugly monster.”
At snack time Sharu passed out snacks, and Oscar told the group, “If you eat the big dark monster’s snacks, you’ll get sick and might die.”
“Okay! That’s it!” I announced. “Oscar, it’s time for you and me to have a talk.” I got down in his face and whispered, “Listen to me, Oscar. I don’t know where you learned to treat people like this, but let me tell you something, it’s completely unacceptable. If you continue down this path, you will grow up to be an ignorant jerk. Is that what you want? Sharu is not a bad person because he has dark skin, but you are a bad person, because you are stupid. He can’t change his skin color, but you can change your attitude.”
“I’m going to tell my mother you called me stupid!” he said.
“Oh, please do, because I would love to have your mother call me. You be sure and tell her everything I said.”
When I got home that day, the Hubs met me at the door. “Do you have something you want to tell me?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked innocently. Did Oscar’s mother call?
“The school counselor called with some book suggestions for Gomer.”
“Oh.”
“It’s weird. A lot of them are the ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ type.”
“Okay, great.”
“Jen. You were gone all day at school with Gomer, the counselor called with book selections implying our kid is going through something kind of big, and now you look guilty. What’s going on?”
I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I blurted out, “Gomer’s a racist! We’re raising a racist! It’s everything you feared! He doesn’t even know his ethnicity! He thinks he’s white, and he thinks that everyone who is darker-colored than him is bad!”
“Oh man, is that all?” the Hubs asked.
“Is that all? Isn’t that enough? Did you hear what I said? He’s a racist!”
“Eh, he’s a little kid. He doesn’t know any better.”
“He plays a game at school where they call Sharu a big dark monster and he sees nothing wrong with that. We suck as parents!”
“Jen, you’re blowing it way out of proportion. Let me guess, it’s that Oscar kid who started the game, right?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I figured. His dad gave me the once-over at drop-off a few weeks ago. I could tell he was shocked to see me with Gomer. It had never occurred to him that Gomer was biracial.”
“He did? Oh shit. Now you want to move, don’t you? You want to go back to New York?”
“No. I’m too spoiled by our square footage now to go back. Look, this is going to happen wherever we live. We just have to stay on top of it and do what we can to help our kids cope. But you have to let me know what’s going o
n. I’ve been worried sick all day.”
“You have?”
“Of course.”
“I was failing at parenting.”
“Well, next time, let’s fail together, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You freaked me out.”
“I did?”
“Yeah! Look at the titles of these books: It’s Not Your Fault That You Feel Like This and I Know You’re Sad, but It Will Be Okay. I thought you were divorcing me!”
Oh please, Hubs. If I were divorcing you, the book title would be Clean Out Your Closet ’Cause I’m Tired of Your Shit.
It’s hard enough for my kids to make friends, but it’s even harder when I can’t stand the moms. Yeah, the Hubs and I have two kids. Gomer seemed fairly easy and so we decided to roll the dice and see if we could get two easy kids. We got Adolpha. That kid was born pissed off. If anyone should be irritated, it should be Gomer. She arrived on his second birthday, forcing him to forever share everything from that point on—even his birthday. She cried a lot, hated to be held, and loved to hit anytime she couldn’t have her own way, but Gomer was thrilled to have her. Over time she warmed up to him—but only him. In her eyes the rest of us are still second-class citizens compared to Gomer.
Adolpha has been anxious for a friend since she was born. She wanted to go to school at two just so she could find someone to play with. Lots of younger siblings want to go to school so they can learn to read or draw, but not Adolpha. She didn’t care about reading and writing and drawing; she wanted to have playdates and sleepovers like Gomer.
As soon as she hit preschool, she started begging me to book her social calendar.
Although I’m one of the least feminine people you’ll meet, I gave birth to a princess. In those days Adolpha would only wear pink or purple—preferably with a feather boa or a tiara—and she refused to play with boys. There weren’t too many girls to choose from because her class was heavy on boys. I tried arranging playdates. I asked a couple of moms if their daughters could come and play, but they had various (normal) reasons why their kids couldn’t come over—dance class, gymnastics class, and so on.