Reflecting Pool

[judifilksign]

Today, I took Irish and Sparkle to the pool.  Lacking his big brother Dino, his usual playmate, Irish sought out others, and finally found a boy about his age, a little pudgy like he was, all alone.  They played together quite happily until the boy had to go home.

Normally, this would not *ping* on my radar as anything special: Irish can, and does make friends with just about anyone.  But the news story from Philly that filkerdave posted this weekend had me thinking, and what I noticed was that our pool was predominantly white, and this boy was biracial - and until Irish came over to say hello, no one was playing with him.

Or was it because they are pudgy, and kids avoid fat peers?  Because no one joined them; they played together as groups of boys did things near, but not with them like Marco Polo, and diving sticks, and water ball catch.

I don't *think* Irish noticed anything unusual; perhaps it is just me being over-sensitized.  But I was still bothered.

I told Irish that I was glad he'd found a new friend to play with, and left it at that.  Irish was just happy that he'd had fun, without being "politically correct" ever coming into it.  It's times like this that I'm glad he goes to a racially diverse elementary school.

Comments

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

I'm glad Irish found a new friend to play with too. He sounds like a nice kid.