I was packing the 5-year-old’s lunch this morning and after putting in the sandwich and strawberries, I added two of the small puris (fried wheat crackers) that my mother had sent for Diwali.
But she took one look at them and said, “No, not those!”
I was surprised because she was literally begging for them last night, so I asked why.
She flopped down on the floor and whispered, “Everybody else in my class is American.”
Mihir and I looked at each other.
She went on to explain that last week at lunch, an older girl in her class looked at her palak paneer and rice and said, “Ewwwww! What’s that?”
“So what did you say?” Mihir asked her.
“I said it is palak paneer which is basically just spinach and cheese.”
“Good for you!” I said, mentally applauding her for speaking up and for the use of the word “basically”.
Her chin started to quiver. “Then her friend laughed and said that it looks like green boogers!”
Ouch.
“I tried to laugh,” she added. “But I couldn’t.”
Now the problem with being a parent is that your emotions get in the way of your good sense and it’s hard to give sound, coherent advice when your child is hurt because you feel hurt too. Hurt that your child felt ashamed, hurt that she felt the need to laugh it off, hurt that her favorite Indian food had been compared to a virulent body fluid.
What’s more, you begin to question your parenting decisions, because this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t thought she would enjoy a change from her usual pasta-sandwich-wrap lunch. And you wonder if you made a mistake by agreeing with her teachers when they had said that she was ready to move up to a class of 6 to 8 year olds, even though she was only five. And you’re mad because palak paneer involves sautéing onions and steaming spinach and looking for a blender and making rice and then washing the stupid blender, which is basically so much more work than slapping a sandwich together.
And you think, why are kids these being mean and did they really mean to be and haven’t they been to an Indian restaurant before and why aren’t their parents exposing them to different cultures?
But then you are forced to reflect on your own biases because you pictured these girls as Caucasian Americans but their names suggest that they are actually Asian Americans who regularly bring seaweed and noodles in their lunch boxes. And this gets you all confused.
So we ended up telling her that she is American too and that she is also Indian. And that she doesn’t need to feel ashamed of our food or our culture or our clothes because it means that we have access to some wonderful flavors and knowledge and experiences.
And then I threw in some resilience talk about how there would always be people in life who will say unkind things but that we have to just do what is right and that we have to stand up for ourselves.
She nodded and added, “And those girls are seven!” (implying that they are big girls who should know not to be mean). And because I was still mad, I almost said, “Damn right. They should’ve known better.” But thankfully, Mihir chimed in to say, “Yes, they are only seven and I don’t think they were trying to be unkind. They were probably just trying to be funny.”
So she agreed to take the puris to school but wanted to know exactly what to say if other kids asked her what they were. And because it is easier, I was tempted to say, “You know, I’ll just pack string cheese instead”. But instead, I told her that she could explain that they are Indian crackers. And she was happy with that explanation “because it does taste like a cracker, just yummier!”. And Mihir gave her another pep talk on culture and countries and pride.
Now that I’m not in momma-bear mode, I’m thinking of all the things to talk to her about when she comes home from school. I plan to ask her to name all those instances when those girls were nice to her (which I am sure they were else she wouldn’t have sat down for lunch with them). And I must remember to ask her if she had been kind to everyone today because kids won’t tell you stories of when they themselves are being mean. And we must talk about how sometimes she says “ewww” when her 1-year-old sister who is potty-training wets herself and how I sometimes make snarky jokes and how her dad sometimes teases her for crying. And how all of us should try to choose kindness over a few laughs.
P.S. Isn’t parenting a blast?
