Living Mad

(written Oct. 17, 2023 / revised Feb. 11, 2025)

My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. W. Often, as most kindergarten classes do, we would participate in “stations.” My mom had recently taught me the trick how to perfectly cut out a heart from a sheet of paper, and I was obsessed. I was cutting out dozens at home! You know the trick——when you fold the paper in half (hamburger style, as I would hear it coined a few years later), then draw and cut out one-half of a heart. Then, when you unfold, you have a fully symmetrical paper heart.

During stations on this day, I got out my art box (labeled with my name “Madison”) and retrieved my scissors. I was peacefully and happily working on making a paper heart, when the teacher came over and scolded me asking “who gave you permission to use scissors?!”

I can clearly remember thinking, why would I need permission? I know how to use scissors? I knew where they were, I have my own pair, I am making a heart. Why is this bad??

But it was “bad” and I had to move my disciplinary clothes pin on the massive laminated stoplight created from construction paper, pinned up high on the wall in the middle of the classroom, from green… to red. I felt shame and confusion and guilt, but also was aware that this was bullshit, and not a fair serving of justice.

Years later, I was working in a preschool daycare setting with children ranging from infant to 5 years old, the summer before they started Kindergarten. There was a lot of chaos, organized and intentional at times, but could easily result in reactionary impulses from myself trying to keep everyone safe and in line (and to save my own sanity to keep messes low and noise levels down).

A full circle moment came when one of the older girls——a very bright almost-kindergartner with small-frame pink glasses highlighting her large, inquisitive eyes——was sitting on the floor cutting paper with scissors. This girl had already at times reminded me of myself. She was smart and stubborn and caring. She had a tic that manifested when attention was on her, or she was in deep thought, where her little hands would tense and shake. It reminded me of the feeling I sometimes get on the nape of my neck, since I was young, when the fine hairs would prickle and I would feel the out-of-body sensation of acute awareness, often aligning with someone drawing on my paper or perceiving my work or perceiving me¹.

And so in this moment, when I saw her using the scissors, a safety alert signaled in my mind as I started into my auto-response of “no” … *SAFETY HAZARD* … “put those away!” But I caught myself. And I shifted. Because I was her, a 6-year-old girl, quiet and capable. The feeling from 20 years earlier felt fresh and familiar. The raw emotions still within me. How silly and infuriating it was that an adult didn’t see me or understand I was fine. When you’re that age, you’re a child, sure, but you are human. A capable little human.

And so in that moment, I caught myself. I empathized. And I told her that I knew she was comfortable with scissors, and I knew she understood the safety rules. I asked her to be sure to let an adult know before she got them out next time——you know, as a formality.

The way we are treated as children shapes us. Authority, structure, socially acceptable norms, attitudes, ineptitudes, right, wrong… all the things I can recall pondering from a young age still run through my mind as if no time has passed, just a couple decades of added experiences, memories, and knowledge tacked onto the same fundamental thoughts.

Who we were is who we are. Embrace that.

1. I would later (on Reddit) stumble upon people describing their real-life experiences of weird dissociative moments and this tingling sensation was a pivotal “you’re not alone” moment for me. This discovery was ASMR, and these videos can closely re-create the feeling I describe. ↩︎