In which unkind comments are overheard on the school yard

As is my custom, I walked Evan to school this morning. We had a good time, walking and talking and playing tag.

When we got to school, Evan's friend Cody met him on the school yard. They played together a bit, and then from off to my right I heard an older kid say, "Cody is a girly-boy!" "Hey, that's not a nice thing to say," I responded. He either ignored me or didn't hear me.

Cody certainly does have some traits that might elicit such taunting. He seems to favor pink; he loves fairies (he wanted to play Tatiana to Evan's Oberon this morning); he loves butterflies. His Land's End backpack is big, pink and out there, and has "Cody" embroidered on it. So what? Meanness is still plain meanness.

Shortly I noticed that Cody was rubbing his eyes and sniffing back tears. I said to him, "that was a mean thing to say, wasn't it?" "Yes," he whimpered. "Cody, you're alright," I said. He came for a hug, which started a hug attack, and a new round of tag with Evan as "it".

Cody and Evan are similar in a lot of ways - both are only children of career parents (Cody's mom is a dentist), both are bright. They've been friends since the summer, and I hear that the two of them seem to get into trouble together. They tend to feed on each other.

I almost said to the mean kid, "Yeah, but Cody'll be a better father one day than your dad is!"