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

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

Bedside Manner

Dear ER doctor,

Do not tell me that you refuse to admit my mom

Before you have even seen her.

Do not tell me that there is no medical reason to keep her in

When she’s had nothing to eat or drink for four days.

Do not tell me that other people need the bed

Like she is a waste of space.

Do not tell me that her care is a family matter

When I am the only family here.

Do not leave your abrupt manner smeared around the hospital room

For nurses to mop up with apologies and bright smiles.

Never mind doctor. I know you’re not listening anyway.

Conni Cartlidge

June 8, 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)

Not yet two, he sleeps

Cozy on his grandma’s bed

Under star blanket cover

Does he dream of his busy morning play group?

Spoon music

Bracelet beading

Singing “I’m a little Metis from head to toe”

Grinning 

Giggling

Does his great grandmother’s spirit visit him?

Reminding him

That he is lucky like her

Fair skinned

Able to pass

Just a toddler, he naps

Unaware of the search

For unmarked graves of 

Dead children.

His missing family.

Conni Cartlidge

May 15, 2018

Cherry Lessons

When your daughter wants a cup of cocoa at bedtime

You don’t just make her a cup of cocoa.

You pull up the tall red metal stool to the kitchen counter so when she perches on it she can reach and you get out the yellow Fry’s cocoa tin, the sugar bowl, the salt shaker, the quart of milk and the boiling water and you explain to her that you will put two spoons of cocoa, two spoons of sugar and just a sprinkle of salt into her mug and she will have to stir thoroughly so all the different colours and textures blend into one brown powder and then you add just a few drops of milk and tell her to blend it all till it’s creamy smooth and then she watches as you slowly add the boiling water almost to the top of the cup and she stirs it ever so gently so as not to burn herself and you tell her she did it just right.

When you love your wife

You don’t just tell her you love her.

You paint “Mary loves Al” in a huge heart with arrows through it on one wall during that spring break when you decide to surprise her with a mustard-yellow ketchup-red redo of your bedroom and you paint “Mary loves Al” in a gigantic heart with arrows through it across the front of the three-bedroom bungalow you share with her and you paint “Mary loves Al” in a small heart hidden under the mattress on the built-in bed frame and no one sees it till it’s time for you to move into a seniors’ apartment together.

When your children want you to read a bedtime story

You don’t just read a story.

You create bossy voices and grouchy voices and high squeaky lady voices and belligerent child voices so the old-fashioned poems about knights and nannies become real and the sound of you reading is so clear that when your child grows up and reads these lines to a tiny baby boy in her care your voice comes through her mouth and she starts to cry as the wide-eyed infant in her arms gazes up at her and she has to put the book down and let her tears drop quietly while the baby pats her back and looks over her shoulder and beyond.

When someone in your family has a birthday

You don’t just say happy birthday.

You phone that person first thing in the morning even though they might want to sleep in or they might be at work or they might not be taking calls and you get their voicemail and you sing happy birthday while you play the ukulele and you always finish with tiddly pom.

When you sponsor a foster child in another country

You don’t just send a cheque.

You write monthly letters and you send family photographs and you buy a plane ticket to the Honduras to visit the child and their family and you travel alone because nobody else is brave enough to go with you and three days before you die you still try to write a letter but can only scratch the date at the top of the lined paper on your desk.

When your lips are dry

You don’t just apply Chapstick.

You ask your wife for some lipkissy and when she finds a tube you smooth it on your lips and then ask for a little kiss and she always gives one.

When you are taken for an evening stroll in your wheelchair

You don’t just sit passively in your wheelchair.

You comment on the smooth ride and the flickering leaf shadows you notice along the new walking path by your personal care home and you ask what the solid brick building is that you see across the lawn and when you are told that it used to be the student nurses’ residence at the mental health centre you exclaim “the stupid nurses?” and when the words are clarified for you there is much laughter before you are taken back to your room on that final Tuesday evening in July.

When it’s time for dessert

You don’t just eat dessert.

You clean your plate because that is what your mom taught you to do and you have a cup of tea and if dessert is simple vanilla ice cream you put a maraschino cherry on top. 

Or maybe two.

In memory of Dad.

Conni Cartlidge

December 2018