small boxes
Big stories in small boxes.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Chicken Bones Goes to School
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Crane Rescue
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Crane Ascending by Genevie Henderson |
Crane Rescue
One thousand orphaned children cling to her wings
Full Moon pulls
them to rocky cradles
One thousand tiny victims of war hide in her feathers
Full Moon pulls them
into a nightlight glow
Far from the earth
Saved babies sleep in peace.
Conni Cartlidge
October 2024
Inspired by the painting "Crane Ascending" by Genevie Henderson
Saturday, February 3, 2024
Who Needs More Like Me in ECE?
This is written in response to the More Like Me in ECE initiative, in which Early Childhood Educators who represent gender diversity in the field, share their photo and pronouns. I suggested the conversation could be expanded to parents/grandparents/caregivers of children being raised beyond the binary. In turn, I was challenged to write about my experience. Here it is.
Who Needs More Like Me in ECE?
I’m a privileged, white, straight, cis boomer. There are lots of us in ECE. But give me a minute to share my story.
When I was studying child development and sociology in the 1970s, I came across three little books in a series called The Gender Gap. I found them at the brand new, alternative bookstore, Prairie Sky Books. I liked them because they had cartoony pictures and simple language…a nice break from my university texts. I read them because they were very readable! A lot of the content focused on workplace wage gaps. But there was more than just the money issue. There were all the gender-based expectations and limitations placed on people in our society. And all the hopes and predictions of parents, based on the shape of their baby’s genitals.
As I began my career in Early Childhood Education, I worked hard at providing all kinds of play materials for all children. Boys could play with dolls and girls could play with trucks. As a parent, I did the same. I felt progressive.
I hadn’t yet learned about pronouns. I didn’t know what a “binary” was. Or that there was anything beyond it.
But now I’m a grandparent of four; one boy, two girls, and one child who has not yet decided what their gender will be. When each of those babies was born, people said, “Congratulations! A boy or a girl?” And with three of my grandchildren, I announced their assigned gender. But with my fourth, I said, “they’re a healthy baby!” or “their parents aren’t assigning a gender” or “they haven’t decided yet” and people nodded and scanned the child quickly to see what they were wearing. If the child wore sparkly pink sandals, people assumed she. If the child was bundled in a brown snowsuit, people assumed he. And when I used they/them pronouns for my grandchild, people asked where the other baby was.
There is confusion. There are misunderstandings. Mistakes are made. But I’m here to say, it’s not that difficult. As a four-year-old recently stated, “we can be girls or boys or theys!”…or maybe some other wonderful being that we could never imagine! We are so indoctrinated into the categories we have learned, that we limit the pure potential of children. I don’t want to return to the 1970s! I’m excited to watch my grandchildren grow in unlimited directions.
So to all the wonderful ECEs out there, question your assumptions. Check pronouns….and share yours! Listen to the children and their caregivers. Maybe we can all move beyond the binary.
Someone recently asked me if my toddler grandchild had chosen their gender yet.
Nope. They only care about me singing Row Row Row Your Boat over and over and over.
And that they can wear yellow pants because yellow pants are the best.
Note: Thank you for the minute. Thank you to my family for sharing their experiences and helping me understand. For some additional beautiful insights, follow @alokvmenon on Instagram.
Conni Cartlidge, BA, ECE lll (she/her)
Treaty 1
February 2024
Saturday, December 23, 2023
Crokinole
Chicken Bones avoided the game. It was stored in the basement, next to her chalkboard and her Barbies. Whenever her dad asked her to play, she tried. But with every flick of her bony finger, she missed the checker and slammed her nail against the oak octagon. It was stupid. Why did her dad love it so much? What did he do differently? His fingers could flip without a flinch. His checkers knocked hers flying and he always triumphed with that final land in the centre hole. Apparently there were rules and points, but how could she possibly learn them while her finger throbbed and her cheeks burned? Stupid Crokinole. Stupid game. She sulked off and her dad shrugged his shoulders as they reached stalemate. He found other players and she conjured up new ideas for the board.
Chicken Bones was intrigued by the eight angles and eight sides of the wooden base. It was the perfect floor plan for a miniature modern home. Unlike her own house, which was a boring rectangular bungalow, the octagon was wild and unexpected. She gathered her plastic doll furniture and sorted out the rooms along the lines of the board. With no right angles, the tiny couch slanted one way and the teeny beds veered off another. The ditch around the perimeter was a glamorous circular driveway for her Dinky cars. And the centre dip could hold a pretend pond or a minuscule Christmas tree.
Chicken Bones never imagined that she would grow up to buy her own modern home that had one little octagon window and an octagonal spiral staircase! One that she would climb daily, carrying groceries or a briefcase or a newborn grandchild.
Chicken Bones didn’t know that she would watch her dad teach the game to friends, neighbours, kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. To international students and visiting Australians. And later, to residents at his personal care home. And she never expected that he would continue to play after the unfortunate snowblower incident which took several pieces of his right hand. And even after his dementia stole other abilities.
Chicken Bones certainly never considered the idea that one day her dad would be gone. And then her mom.
And the old board would be left to Chicken Bones’ youngest child. And that her youngest child would teach his children how to play Crokinole. And send her pictures over the phone so she could see them score and laugh as they learned their great-grandpa’s favourite game.
Chicken Bones did not plan to save her brittle doll furniture for over sixty years, but she did. So that heavy octagon could still be a dollhouse, too. Though not quite so modern.
Play your own way!
Love,
Conni aka Chicken Bones
(With thanks to Jim Barrault for giving me my perfect nickname when I was a scrawny newborn baby.)
December 2023
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Bedside Manner
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Call to Action #73
We call upon the federal government to work with churches, Aboriginal communities, and former residential school students to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action)
Friday, December 21, 2018
Cherry Lessons
When you love your wife
When your children want you to read a bedtime story
When you sponsor a foster child in another country
When your lips are dry