Suffer the Little Children

Despite advertising itself as following the international curriculum, my daughter’s very expensive school is international only in the sense that it charges in US dollars. In her last school, in a class of 23 students on average there were 18 different nationalities. Here, the students are predominantly Peruvian and Catholic. They have Religious Instruction classes where they learn hymns and compose acrostics on JESUS CHRIST. Other religions are superficially examined under the rubric of ‘Traditions’ in their Unit of Inquiry class.

There is a House system, meant to promote teamwork and camaraderie but in reality increasing the pressure to conform – all perceived infractions are not just punished on an individual basis but also attract demerit points for your House. So if you fuck up you have to deal with your own sense of failure as well as the opprobrium of your schoolmates. And, just to ensure that gender roles are well inculcated from the get-go, the Houses are headed by House Masters assisted by House Mothers.

Poor Smuggies has therefore been struggling to cope with the shock of moving from an environment where diversity was the norm to one where conformity is essential. After a joyous first day where she was the toast of the girls in her class, things went rapidly downhill. The teacher told me that she was repeatedly pestered with questions as to why she had not done First Communion. She replied politely at first but after continuously being badgered she said “my Mum doesn’t believe in God, so I didn’t do it”. I understand from the teacher that this caused great consternation among the students including the conclusion that “your Mum must be a very bad person”. Smuggies defended me valiantly and insisted that I had even been voted the coolest mum in the school by her former schoolmates but it seems she has been marked for all eternity from that day.

To this initial setting apart was added the inevitable challenge of finding a niche in an already established social order. Girls are in a minority in her class and there is a strong clique led by Florencia, an Alpha female with the much-admired talent of being able to hold her breath and turn bright red at will. She apparently rules the assorted Alejandras, Andreas and Antonellas with an iron fist. Initially welcomed as a new recruit, Smuggies fell afoul of her when, having refused an order to be the counter in a game of hide and seek when it wasn’t her turn, she was told that she was to count “because I say so. And if you don’t I will make sure that no one plays with you ever again.”

Smuggies resisted and the sentence of ostracism was carried out with all the girls of her class swearing a solemn oath never to play with her again. She has been spotted by the teacher hiding behind walls on the playground. When asked why she is not mixing she pretends that she’s playing hide and seek with someone who is at the present moment hiding.

She understood much faster than I did that while it is all right to make fancy PowerPoint presentations on Hanukkah as a class project, diversity just don’t cut it on the playground. She is both desperate to fit in and subconsciously indignant at the need to do so. In her quest for acceptance she is vigorously suppressing all that makes her unique. In the hope of achieving straight hair she has managed to shave off a patch at the front and, when she was singled out as having a beautiful voice and selected to sing a solo in the Christmas show, she was at first delighted and then flatly refused to do it.

“I don’t want them to like me for my voice Mum.”

She falls over herself to be obliging and suffers agonies of anxiety in her desire to please. When the girls in her class liked the chocolate spread sandwich she brought for a snack, she swiped the entire bottle to take to school for them. One girl enjoyed the mango she had for dessert so now I have to send several each day. When she was selected to represent her House in basketball and running on sports day she threw up from the sheer terror of failing because she saw it as a last chance to gain glory and acceptance.

This desire to please combined with the daily frustration of being the outsider is explosive and inevitable leads to trouble. The other day I got a call from the school. They were very sorry to tell me that my daughter had been involved in an ‘incident’. A boy had been teasing her relentlessly in the playground so she aimed a kick at him, missed and kicked another boy. She was very sorry indeed, apologised profusely and, in order to make it up to him, offered to take revenge on his behalf on anyone he cared to identify. He accepted this offer and pointed out a third boy, an innocent bystander, whom Jade then obligingly kneed in the nuts.

When hauled up before authority she admitted that she knew what she had done was wrong and that violence is unacceptable but kept asking in a hopeful voice, “are you going to expel me?” She now has a permanent black mark on her school record and I’ve been called in for a meeting with the school psychologist.

She has since made up with Florencia the Red but still hides behind walls in the playground. Why? “I know the other girls want to play with me Mum but they swore an oath to God” so she doesn’t want to be responsible for consigning their souls to eternal damnation if they break it. I told her if she got me God’s cell phone number I’d call and have a chat with him about it but she was indignant at my frivolity.

“Cell phones weren’t invented back then Mum!”

So now I’m contemplating writing a letter to the Pope asking for special dispensation to let the other girls play with my daughter at school.

Ever wonder how religious wars get started?