When Preschoolers Speak for Us All

Picking Mila up from school is always a highlight of my day. She acts like it's been weeks since she saw me every single time and it rules. While I am absolutely focused on her and her happy during the pickup process, that doesn't mean I don't happen to notice the things happening around us.

Like, a kid running over to a teacher and saying, "She hit me!"

The little girl doing the tattling was probably 3 or 4-years old and clearly wasn't hurt, but she knew that it was a reportable offense. The teacher, of course, did his job and began to ask questions. A few seconds later, he found himself sitting next to the alleged offender and asking the right questions to clarify the situation. His, "Did you hit her?" was met with a face.

It was a wide-eyed face that very clearly said, "DUH. OF COURSE I DID."

And then she said it. The alleged-offender became the confessed-offender as she flat-out said, "Yeah, I hit her."

The teacher was, of course, a little taken aback. I was trying not to laugh because I SAW THAT FACE. That face so definitely conveyed that hitting someone was the only possible solution to whatever was happening.

Which, what was happening? Why?

The teacher asked. "But why did you hit her?"

"Because I don't know her," the confessed-offender replied.

It turns out that the little girl who was hit was at the daycare center for her very first day. The teacher did all the right things to move the moment forward and make sure it doesn't happen again, which basically means I'd like to elect him into a government position at this point because I don't know if there is a better symbol of where we are as a country than a little girl hitting another little girl because "I dont' know her."

America needs to be sent to Time Out.