Gingerbread Jesus
A Candid Parenting Story of Weird Ways Children Express Themselves
When my children were 3 and 5 years old they attended the same pre-school in the town that I worked in. This was a wonderful school for so many reasons. It was a Catholic school, which I was on the fence about, however my husbands parents were so deeply rooted in the church, I felt like it would shred them apart if we chose anything but for them (at least at this age). My people pleasing problem was still in pretty high gear at this time. I really couldn’t imagine having the conversation with Bill’s parents that I didn’t want this path for them.
Now, my husband still had some residual catholic guilt at this point and although he didn’t truly want his boys to follow the same private school path as him, he wasn’t ready to face his Deacon-dad and Catholic-school-principal-mother, to break their hearts just yet. Also, at this time in our lives there really were more pros than cons for the decision. For example, they offered before and after school care at a fraction of the cost of anywhere else, and it was less than 2 minutes from my job at the time. So, since we were living pay check to pay check and I was running chronically late for everything at the time, to catholic school they went. Mind you, the cost of preschool for 2 children was a second mortgage for us, but well, at least they were out of diapers so that was a big win! And I must note, those teachers were saints. No Catholic puns intended, the patience and grace they had with dealing with over 40 loud, germ infested, not independent with wiping anything, precious little 4 year old's was nothing short of sainthood. I will be forever thankful for those 2 years. Honest.
Anyway, my reason for the background is that one of their pre-school assignments around Christmas time was to decorate a Gingerbread man for the bulletin board. They were provided with a pre-cut 10 inch brown paper man, and the kids got to use their imaginations and color him in however they’d like. They even provided yarn and squiggly paper for hair options, googly eyes of all sizes, and buttons if they wanted to give him a shirt. Most kids did the eyes, scribbled some red outfit to be festive and wrote their name on the back, calling it a day.
When it came time for open house, the kids excitedly pointed to their Gingerbread person and the Mom’s smiled with delight, telling their kid how wonderful they did.
My older son, Will, guided me by hand over to the colorful array of gingerbread boys and girls. With the cutest smile he asked my husband and me if we could pick his creation out. After a moment of two, I honestly couldn’t differentiate his from any of the others. He then led me to the saddest little gingerbread that you ever did see. Not because of his lack of artistic ability - his gingerbread man literally had the biggest frown. With a closer look, I also noticed that this little ginger also had dark red scribbles on both of his pudgy hands. Naturally, I asked Will why he was sad. “Mommy, he’s Gingerbread Jesus. He’s nailed to the cross and there is blood coming out of his hands. Wouldn’t you be sad, too?”
Oh. My. God. Literally WTF? All of these happy little gingerbread boys and girls are brightening up the room, and my son decides that this is the right time to depict the crucifixion. Of course I smiled at him and told him how creative he was, and then immediately went to the teacher. I didn’t even know what to say, but I had to say something.
Um… “interesting choice, huh?”, was all that I could stutter out. I got a sympathetic smile and her eyes gazed up to a 3 foot painting of Jesus nailed to the cross hanging near the ceiling on the other side of the room. Clearly, this is where his inspiration came from. And clearly, my empathetic child was feeling bad for him. After all, it was the reason for the season.
Well, fast forward a year and now it was Gavin’s turn to have the Gingerbread assignment. The room was set up exactly the same during a winter open house and it was another display of Christmas delight. Taken by the hand, we were again led to the bulletin board to see if we could find Gavin’s gingerbread person. He could barely hold back his excitement to point out his radiant, ginger bread… wait for it… Drag Queen.
Another OMG. WTF? Yup, among the plain Jane’s of gingerbread people, my kids choose Gingerbread Jesus and Ginger Drag Queen. I am killing this parenting thing.
This time, although, I wasn’t quite as surprised that my son’s choices were off the beaten path. I had a year more of experience in parenting 2 completely (personality) different children and at this point Gavin was definitely showing some, ok a lot, of gender non-conforming traits. Some of which were drawing female self portraits, wearing only ‘girl socks’, rocking all the female superhero costumes, and in this case, channeling the RuPaul of gingerbreads. Lots and lots of glitter and hair. It was beautiful, just like his creative little soul, and I smiled from my toes.
Our children are not us. We do not raise them to be just like us. They are beautifully themselves and we need to embrace their differences. I am not embarrassed by either one of those creative masterpieces even though the teachers were mortified in each case. The moral of this story is best summed up by a quote from Meryl Streep. “What makes you different or weird, that’s your strength”.
Get on with your inner gingerbread person and shine brightly my friends. I'll keep having my kids do the same.
