I don’t remember it, but my mum loves to tell this story whenever there’s a discussion of racism going on. 

When I was growing up, our neighbours on one side were Indian, and I was occasionally invited into their garden to play with their younger child who was a few years older than me.

When I was about four, the whole family went back to India to see the extended family still living there. While they were away, they arranged for their cleaner, an older Indian woman, to come in and pick up the mail and do some of the bigger cleans it was hard to do while the family was home. 

We were out in the garden when I spotted her hanging out some of the cleaning cloths she’d washed on the line. 

Me: “Mummy, there’s [Neighbour]’s granny!”

Mum: “No, darling, that’s the cleaner.”

Me: “But Mummy, that’s [Neighbour]’s granny.”

Mum: “No, [Neighbour]’s gone to see his granny in India, remember?”

Me: “But Mummy, she has to be [Neighbour]’s granny!”

Mum says that, at this point, she could see the cleaner watching me out of the corner of her eye, and Mum was praying I wouldn’t say what she thought I was going to say.

Me: “She’s got grey hair like a granny!”

My mum says the cleaner completely lost it at that point and doubled over laughing. She always likes to make the point that I clearly thought nothing of their skin colour, but she obviously needed to teach me that not every lady with grey hair was someone’s granny.

A mother is checking out. She has her newborn infant in a buggy, along with her son who looks to be about four years old.

Suddenly, the boy’s eyes go wide, and he shouts loudly.

Son: “Mommy! You forgot to raise [Little Brother]! You need to raise him!”

I look confused and the mother catches my look.

Customer: “Oh, he thinks ‘raising a child’ means actually lifting a child above your head. He got that from The Lion King.”

Me: “Oh, that’s cute!”

Customer: “It is, until you find your four-year-old trying to hold his baby brother up over his head next to a bunch of rocks…” 

I need to stop chatting with the customers!

A mother is buying a pregnancy congratulations card at our card store. She has a very uncooperative young girl with her, maybe four or five.

Mother: “Just this, please.”

Daughter: “I’m bored!”

The daughter then lashes out against a display of novelty candies we have on the counter, knocking them everywhere.

Mother: “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry!”

Me: *Hiding my annoyance* “That’s okay. Kids, eh?”

The mother insists on helping me tidy up the mess. She orders her daughter to help, too, although she is making minimal effort. When they’re finally done and ready to head out…

Mother: “If you don’t get moving, we’re gonna be late for the baby shower!”

Daughter: “Why do we have to go? Can’t they wash their own baby?” 

I admit, that almost made it worth it. Almost.

A father is buying some clothes for his younger teenage daughter, and his nine- or ten-year-old son is with them. He really wants a Pokémon cap that we sell near the checkouts.

Little Boy: “Daaaad! I want this!”

Father: “No, we’re not here for that, and you have too many hats anyway.”

Little Boy: “But [Sister] is getting so many things! I can’t have one thing?”

Father: “Shush, [Son]. I said no.”

Little Boy: “You motherf*****!”

Father: “Where did you hear that word?! It was from Simon wasn’t it?! You are not to hang out with that boy ever again!”

Teenage Daughter: “But, Dad, to us, you are one of those.”

There is a pause, and then the poor exasperated father turns to me.

Father: “Never have kids. They find loopholes in everything.”

Me: “Oh, too late for me; I have a seven-year-old. He told me he didn’t have to dry the dishes last week because ‘that’s air’s job.’ It’s my own fault as I bought him a science book!”

The father and I both laughed — a funny shared parent moment. That boy was grounded for a week, though!

My mom is the preschool teacher and a before- and after-school teacher at the same tiny little school — we call it a “three-room one-room schoolhouse” — that I attended as a child. Another teacher teaches kindergarten through second grade. The owner teaches grades three through six, as well as doing the admin, and I am on the roll as a substitute teacher but rarely come in because I have a full-time job. Enrollment is low enough that as long as the teachers have their appointments during the regular school day, they don’t need a sub because they have the correct ratio of staff to students.

This is not one of those days. My mom has a late-afternoon appointment, so I arrange to take the time off from my regular job and go to the school to sub. I arrive while the youngest kids (kindergarten and below) are napping; my job is to monitor naptime and then watch the after-school kids until my mom gets back. This is the first time I have been there in a while.

An important note for this story: while I am both nonbinary and intersex, I was assigned female at birth, and when this story takes place, I still identify as female.

I am sitting in the multi-purpose room with the lights on, having helped the nappers to put away their cots, when the older kids come into the room. Several of them greet me. One of the first-graders who comes in is a boy I have not met before, despite this being his second or third year at the school. Preschool and kindergarten are both half days, and I always leave before he arrives, or I arrive in the evenings well after he’s left, so I expect he’s going to have some questions. To my mild surprise, he walks right past me and begins playing.

After about half an hour, this little boy walks up to me and spreads out his arms with the biggest, most delighted smile on his face, his eyes sparkling. I instantly wonder what he’s done. I am not prepared for what he says.

Boy: *Delighted* “You don’t look like an old lady anymore!”

It takes me a full five seconds to process what he’s saying, and when I catch on, I can’t help it: I start laughing.

Me: “Oh, honey. I’m not Mrs. [Mom]. I’m her daughter.”

The boy stares at me, his expression never once changing from its broad, delighted grin. Slowly and dramatically, he crumples to the ground and sprawls out on the floor, pretending to have fainted. He scoots away on the floor without getting up, like he’s doing the backstroke, and eventually gets up and goes back to playing. He does, however, keep shooting me glances out of the corner of his eye when he thinks I’m not looking.

Finally, he walks up to me again.

Boy: “You’re not wearing a costume?”

Me: “No, this is how I really look all the time.”

He goes back to playing… sort of. A few minutes later, he comes up a third time.

Boy: “Are you sure you’re not wearing a costume?”

Me: *Trying not to laugh* “No, honey, I’m Ms. [Deadname]. I’m Mrs. [Mom]’s daughter.”

Boy: “Oh.”

I am still there when his mom arrives. I greet her. She absently greets me back. [Boy] comes back.

Boy: “This is Ms. [Deadname].”

[Boy] eyes me suspiciously, but he’s still grinning from ear to ear.

Boy: “She’s not wearing a costume.”

My mom was not at all amused when I told her this!