There were a lot of reasons we put our son J in the Montessori instead of the traditional preschool. The Montessori, for example, was clean. It was also well-regarded and highly-desired (a fact of which we were reminded every 30 days when the bill arrived). And, finally, we liked the environment and the idea that J, per the Montessori method, would have the opportunity to move at his own pace. (Also, the school was oddly serene – when I dropped him off there in the mornings I just wanted to get myself a cup of coffee and spend the day wrapped in a blanket. It was like one big womb sans the annoying placenta.)

As a point of reference, another preschool we toured was run by an 18-year-old girl in a t-shirt so tight that you really had to stare to figure out that the letters scripted across her chest in sparkly paint were not just a cryptic “nge” but actually the word “Angel” (the “A” and the “l” forced to the sides by the prominence of her youth). So, although I told my wife I would be more than happy to handle all the pickups and drop offs and although we had vowed we were not going to be THOSE PARENTS who protect our child from all risk, my wife recognized that putting J in Angel’s daycare would be like putting him in a car that’s racing across a sheet of ice at 100 miles per hour.

On a winding mountain road.

With the paparazzi in hot pursuit

And Princess Diana’s chauffer at the wheel.

In other words, it was the kind of thing that would make a hell of a story later.

So, we went the safe route and good news is that he thrived in the Montessori system – in fact, to the degree that when it came time for public school kindergarten, the move was made with no small amount of trepidation. He’d been successful and now we were shaking things up. What would happen to all the individuality that we and his teachers at Montessori had encouraged? Would he become just another number in the public school administrative computer, his individuality warn away as he melded into the machine that is the American industrial complex?

Fortunately, the process that saps the desire to learn and your identity is a gradual erosion. Right now, it looks like he’ll finally lose the last of the qualities we so admire with the rest of his friends – roughly around junior high. Then it will be a crapshoot for eight to ten years until he lands a dead-end office job where he aspires for middle management only to get his balls busted every time they announce a new round of promotions. And after a couple decades of that, when he realizes this is as good as it’s going to get, J will look back and wonder where it all went wrong. For most of us, that answer is extremely complex with random events and seemingly unimportant turns of fate taking on a significance that only becomes apparent years later. But J will know that it all goes back to the day that we yanked him out of the Montessori. So, at least he’ll have peace of mind.

You’re welcome, son.

There certainly have been some encouraging holdovers from the Montessori days that have stuck. One of the most significant is that, unlike many of his peers, J has a wide range of friends from both genders and all races. This is great and perhaps the most a parent could ever hope to instill in a child.

Apparently, however, not everyone sees that as some kind of notable achievement. One of his teachers (one who was supposedly among the best in the district) told us in hushed voice/let-me-hold-your-hand dramatics that J was spending a lot of time “playing with girls.”

“I thought you would want to know,” she told us. “I would want someone to tell me if I was in your position.”

This was followed by some awkwardness – not surprising. I wasn’t sure if “playing with girls” meant he was grabbing asses or if he was putting on dresses. Neither appropriate, although one perhaps slightly preferable to the other, especially considering his legs are skinny and often bruised.

But it turns out it was neither: He was just sitting on the swings and talking with girls during recess, which is apparently so odd for an eight-year-old boy that it sets off the finely-tuned alarms of the public education system.

So, clearly, I was way off base to have concerns about jumping into a public school.

J, however, has picked up a little quirk from the girls: my son may be the only 8-year-old, red-headed, freckle-faced boy in America who bobs his head from side to side and says “oh no you didn’t” whenever something shocking happens.

He’s Opie Taylor crossed with George Jefferson’s sassy housekeeper Florence. It’s the worst blending of sitcom characters since Mork visited the gang on Happy Days.

Our concern, of course, is not about him doing it per se as much as it is about what will happen when he does it in public and someone takes offense. It seems a certainty that no stranger is going to see that and think: “Those parents have done a good job in making sure that their child does not suffer from the racial  and cultural stereotypes that have plagued us for generations and held this nation back in so many ways.”

I should note that our younger son K’s Montessori experience did not achieve such lofty heights as breaking down cultural barriers. In fact, most of his time there was involved in what Montessori teachers described to my wife and me as “careful observation.” When we finally visited his classroom to see what was going on, it became clear that “careful observation” was a euphemism for “pressing his genitals against the playroom floor” – yes, we could have gotten this from Angel’s daycare. Based on what we now see at home, I am almost certain that K has continued, if not increased, his “careful observation” at the public school kindergarten. Fortunately, this behavior is far more socially acceptable than talking with girls, so it is never mentioned as a concern by his current teachers.

Please feel free to draw your own conclusions about what all this says about us as a society.

I am proud to report that today J is still playing with both girls and boys and, we are especially delighted that they come from a fairly wide range of cultural backgrounds. It is truly amazing. We have heard people say that children truly do not see race, and while that is certainly true, J is somewhere far beyond that. We are extremely proud and feel like maybe we’ve done something right.

So, score one for the parents!