Scene: Harriet�s office. AJ is wandering around looking at things. He stops in front of the calendar.

AJ: Hey! [pointing to the notation of Rosh Hashanah on Saturday, September 23.] I�ve heard of that!

Harriet: [looking up from her file cabinet where she is rummaging through a pile of Josquin scores] Heard of what?

AJ: Rrrro�.I�m not sure how you say it. R.H.

Harriet: Rosh Hashanah?

AJ: Yeah. Some people�I forget what they�re called, celebrate that. It�s like Happy New Year.�

Harriet: [who is surprised that the topic of Judaism has come up in our overwhelmingly Christian corner of the world] They�re called Jewish. It means they practice a religion called Judaism. Where�d you hear about that? At school?

AJ: No. It was in one of my books. Daddy said your friend RS is Jewrish [sic].

Harriet: That�s right. Is anyone at your school celebrating Rosh Hashanah?

AJ: [Looking at Harriet like she�s nuts] No. I don�t think anyone here does. I think they have to live in New York.

* * * * *
Poor AJ. I really couldn�t contain my laughter after that remark. Even as tears were rolling down my cheeks, AJ was growling the frustrated growl of embarrassed humiliation for his error.

I�ve started becoming self-conscious about the way my speech changes when I�m talking to AJ. It�s not that I think what I�m doing is a bad thing, it�s just that I�m suddenly started being aware of what I�m doing while I�m doing it. In the above exchange, I suddenly balked at asking AJ if anyone in his class was Jewish, substituting instead �Is anyone celebrating Rosh Hashanah?� The problem here is, I think, that calling someone Jewish sounds like a label, a limit of some sort. Somehow I want AJ to have a more fluid concept of a person than our language implies. So I choose phrases that talk about what a person does instead of what a person is. I never noticed that I did this until today, but when I think back to other conversations I�ve had with him, I think I do this a lot.

As a parent, I find I have a genuine desire to make the world a better place. And not just that, but the desire to help my kid be a better person than I am. It�s remarkable what a clean slate a child is � I don�t want to feed him the biases or categories or labels or limits that I�ve acquired in my nearly 40 years on this planet. I want him to keep looking and listening and wondering, just as he does right now. It�s not just for him. It�s for me too. I need him to remind me what it�s like before you know things, when so much is still unfamiliar, when names impart ownership but not yet compartments. Also, I need him to make me laugh like hell.

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