New territory. Those two words pretty much sum up my parenting experience with our middle son. My first son was what people would call “all boy.” Spiderman, superheroes, and sharks were his interests. If anything looked like a ball, he would throw it or hit it, and if he could make a sport out of anything that’s what he did. I very clearly remember buying his kindergarten backpack. It was your typical Pottery Barn rugby striped backpack with his initials on it (hello, I’m Southern), but I also thought it would be fun to let him pick a patch to be sewn on. You know, a little flair to represent him. As he looked at all of the choices and pretended to have to think about it, I knew exactly which one he’d choose. The backpack with the great white shark patch lasted several years and I’ll always picture him carrying it.
When it came time this year to buy my middle son his kindergarten backpack, I started having anxiety and I knew exactly why. I had already made the decision to get the same backpack my oldest son had because it was such great quality, but I knew his flair was going to be different. You see, my middle son is not into Spiderman, superheroes, and sharks. He’s into princesses, rainbows, and unicorns. As I let him scroll through the patch choices, my heart began to sink. I had spent so many years telling him things like “there’s no such thing as boy/girl colors, there’s just colors” and “boys can play with dolls just like girls can play with tractors” because I truly believe those things! In that moment though, as I watched him hover over the unicorn, I heard myself saying things like, “Oooo, did you see the dinosaur?” and “What about the dragon?” Then, he’d scroll some more, pausing over the ones he liked and all the while looking at my reaction to see if I liked it too.
When he came to a pink and purple shiny butterfly, I heard him exhale with delight. There were actually two butterflies to choose from and his little fingers did eeny, meeny, miny, moe on the screen and landed on the pink and purple butterfly. “I want this one mom!” Of course, he did. It’s what I would have picked out for him too if I was surprising him with it. I told him I loved his choice and that his backpack was going to be amazing.
With that, we shut the computer, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I kept visualizing my son walking into kindergarten on the first day of school, so proud of his new clothes, shoes, and backpack, and smiling from ear to ear. But then, my vision would keep going. I had awful thoughts and images of kids pointing, whispering, and laughing about his patch. I imagined them saying things like, “Why do you have a girl patch on your backpack?,” “Butterflies are for girls,” and I even heard them chanting “Nash is a girl, Nash is a girl…” and my heart felt as if it would nearly burst.
I couldn’t let this happen.
We, his parents, could not let this happen. My husband and I talked about it at length, and both agreed on one thing: there are certain times in life when our roles as his protector will have to outweigh our roles as his cheerleader. There are times when we have to value and prioritize his protection over his right to have a more creative expression. Why? Because the world is full of jerks. Because everyone isn’t our family and circle of friends. Because everyone isn’t going to love Nash the way we love him. Because if his experience is negative on the first day of school, it will then cast a shadow on every other day of school. Because the rose-colored vision his innocent mind currently has of kindergarten will eventually get squashed by some Negative Nancy or Nick, but if we can protect him from that for even days longer, then that’s our first job.
There will certainly come a time when he discovers that the butterfly patch that brings him so much joy will cause other feelings in him as well. But it won’t be the first day of kindergarten. We won’t allow it to be.
So, what did I tell him when his backpack showed up butterfly patch-less? Duh…I lied. I told him they were out of patches but that we could go after his first week of school and pick out a patch and that we could cover his backpack with patches as he makes his way through kindergarten. I told him to just think of all the awesome patches we can put on his backpack throughout the year. I swear I could see the rainbows and butterflies forming in his mind already.
So, what’s the difference now? Why would we not allow it on the first day only to get it after the first week? Well, we know our son. We know he will find “his people.” We know he will feel an immense amount of love and security just in that first week. We know that what we all love about him will draw others to him as well.
