Child’s Play

From: Leah

Children are often thought of as innocent, they watch, absorb, and simply reenact what they are taught by the adults around them. In this photo, little Mary, age 5, stands in shock as she tries to get the boys to rescue her. Mary plays alone; running, screaming, and laughing with only herself through the water spouts at the zoo. Meanwhile, Mary’s brother, Andy (the blonde boy to the right of Mary in the photo) runs and plays with a group of other boys. Although they are brother and sister, both children find themselves unknowingly segregating based purely on sex.

Mary tried to gain the boys approval by running near them, she even made an attempt to splash Andy. All of Mary’s hard work falls through when she learns that the boys are not interested in playing her game of “mermaids” – they want to be in the jungle. The boys, Andy included, play for hours splashing each other and chasing after one at a time. It takes Mary forty-five minutes to get bored of being the only mermaid in the fountains, she walks over to me and says “I’m Snow White, Andy’s Sleepy. He’s playing with the other dwarfs now, so I’m done.” I ask her why she doesn’t play with them and without missing a beat Mary responded, “I have cooties”.

Somewhere between being a sister, a mermaid, and being Snow White; Mary was rejected because the boys did not want cooties in the jungle. No feelings were hurt, it was just stated as a simple fact.

Whether or not the children knew it, they were performing according to pre-programmed gender roles, and rules. In this photo I focus on Mary, who stands in a stance that can only reflect Van Gogh's "Scream."  There is a clear shot of Andy in the background because he has an influence on Mary. Andy is also the only boy whose face is directly visible in the photo to clarify some sort of connection. The stream of water has been kept on the left side of the picture to lead the eye back from Mary’s desperation for playful attention to the boys and their unknowing neglect.

I chose to use this photo in particular purely because it is just a moment in the children’s playtime. I did not stage this because I was hoping to capture the kids’ true colors and an actual moment to show that with an adults influence, children naturally segregate themselves.