Other People's Children

Every day, I hear my name dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, from the mouths of other people's children.

Other people's children come to me on the playground when they don't feel well. Other people's kids bury their head in my side on the way to the nurses office. I break up fights and comfort tears. I give advice about pre-teen angst and explain why we can't pole dance on the playground. They run up for hugs and hold my hand while we're walking. I park them when they're out of control and teach a hundred times that we look the other person in the eye when we appologize and we do our best to make resitution.

Being the invisible hand helping to raise other people's children, means that I get to celebrate the silly little things. It means that I get to know the first time all year that a certain fifth grader makes it all the way through lunch in the gym without going to the office. It means that I get to celebrate when a "trouble" kid who has been studiously ignoring me for months crawls up close to play a board game and stays there, centimeters from my side, until he is forced to leave. It means I get to laugh with the fourth grader who pulls me by the bracelet, because he is too cool to take my hand, and pretend not to see the third graders who will creep up until they can body slam into my back, because someone has told them that big boys don't ask for hugs.

I get to explain to fifth grade girls that they have every right to stay away from boys who punch them by way of flirting and be totally baffled by a fifth grade boy who one week decides to hover by my side - until I drop a hand on the top of his head and he grins and runs off to play football. It means that I sit in the grass and explain how to write a paragraph, and it means trying to get a story read past the through-the-roof anxiety over a non-custodial parent coming to pick them up early from school.

Every once in a while I realize how strange it is that I know the eating habits of other people's children - who doesn't like sauce, or will only eat the inside of their sandwich; who can eat more than seems possible and who will throw out half of what's on their tray. I know which kids eat fast or slow, which ones need reminders to eat faster than they talk, and who needs a little extra encouragement to pick out fruits and vegetables.

I've learned the friends and playing habits of other people's children, who plays with who and how and the length of time that it's likely to be before they forgive each other after each new drama.

And, then, I have to wonder at the oddity of a culture that finds it normal to entrust so much of their children's lives to person that they will never know. When, exactly, did we decide that it was normal to raise other people's children?