Kids

On Wednesdays for the past two weeks we have been helping look after Japanese nursery school kids. For me this was quite a challenge since the only kid I have ever really looked after is my little sister. Any brother/sister who has looked after a younger sibling will know the pain that I have experienced. Some of the kids were scared of me, some of them were too curious – punching me in very unsavoury places, but most of all the kids thought I was a giant talking climbing frame.

After I had lifted my twentieth child and making them believe they were a bird I was feeling very knackered, and quite frankly bored. Then a ‘big-boned’ girl wanted to be fly – I think she mistook my grimace for a smile. After playing a bit more I realised there was a massive sex divide – the boys sat on one side of the room and the girls on the other, and the boys seemed to bully, and be allowed to bully the girls.



At one point I was expected to sing a song which went something like this: “1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,5,6,7”. The whole class was told to gather around whilst I sang, not as harrowing experience as I would have thought, quite funny actually.

Whilst we were having lunch most of the boys sat on one side and the girls sat on the other. Every boy had their Pokémon, Deka Ranger, or Dragonball Z napkin and chopsticks, and every girl had something cute and pink (my point being: we are truly institutionalised into expectations of gender and culture). I failed to mention that whist I was lifting one boy, I hit his head pretty hard against a wooden beam. This boy didn’t even blink, or grab his head, but I could tell he was in pain because his eyes were starting to water. This boy who wouldn’t acknowledge physical pain was now, at the dinner table, crying, full volume because he didn’t like these kind of noodles.

It was strange that near the end of the first day that when the kids had got bored of me and ran away doing their own things, that it was me who felt alone. And it was me, sadly, wondering around vying for their attention.