Bad Guys Don't Have Birthdays: Fantasy Play at Four

By Vivian Gussin Paley

Bad guys are not allowed to have birthdays, pick blueberries, or disturb the baby. So say the four-year-olds who announce life's risks and dangers as they play out the school year in Vivian Paley's classroom.

Their play is filled with warnings. They invent chaos in order to show that everything is under control. They portray fear to prove that it can be conquered. No theme is too large or too small for their intense scrutiny. Fantasy play is their ever dependable pathway to knowledge and certainty.

" It . . . takes a special teacher to value the young child's communications sufficiently, enter into a meaningful dialogue with the youngster, and thereby stimulate more productivity without overwhelming the child with her own ideas. Vivian Paley is such a teacher."—Maria W. Piers, in the American Journal of Education

"[Mrs. Paley's books] should be required reading wherever children are growing. Mrs. Paley does not presume to understand preschool children, or to theorize. Her strength lies equally in knowing that she does not know and in trying to learn. When she cannot help children—because she can neither anticipate nor follow their thinking—she strives not to hinder them. She avoids the arrogance of adult to small child; of teacher to student; or writer to reader."—Penelope Leach, author of Your Baby & Child in the New York Times Book Review

"[Paley's] stories and interpretation argue for a new type of early childhood education . . . a form of teaching that builds upon the considerable knowledge children already have and grapple with daily in fantasy play."—Alex Raskin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Through the 'intuitive language' of fantasy play, Paley believes, children express their deepest concerns. They act out different roles and invent imaginative scenarios to better understand the real world. Fantasy play helps them cope with uncomfortable feelings. . . . In fantasy, any device may be used to draw safe boundaries."—Ruth J. Moss, Psychology Today

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9780226076133

Book preview

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Bad Guys Don’t Have Birthdays

1

My mother doesn’t have no more birthdays, Fredrick tells me in school one day.

Do you mean she doesn’t have a birthday party?

No. She really doesn’t have a birthday. How I know is no one comes to her birthday and also she doesn’t make the cake.

Fredrick is four and his ideas often take me by surprise. This is his second year in a classroom and my twenty-eighth.

Do you think she still gets older every year?

You know how much she is old? Twenty-two.

His mother is older than that but Fredrick likes the sound of twenty-two. And Mollie’s favorite is twelve-teen. That’s the olderest, she says. My daddy is already a twelve-teener on his birthday.

I accept twelve-teeners and mothers who don’t have birthdays as gifts. Each time a child invents one of these unique arrangements of image and phrase, I sense anew the natural order that gives young children this awesome talent for explaining life’s mysteries. The thrill no longer comes from hearing my own answers repeated; I hunger for those I cannot imagine to problems unmentioned in the curriculum guides. Nearly every lesson I want to pursue arises out of the children’s consciousness. Birthday is high on the list.

Maybe you and daddy can make mother a birthday party, I suggest.

But they never remember her birthday and when it’s her birthday they forget when her birthday comes and when her birthday comes they forget how old she is because they never put any candles. So how can we say how she is old?

The candles tell how old someone is?

You can’t be old if you don’t have candles.

Fredrick, ask your mother to have a cake and candles. She’ll tell you when her birthday is.

She can’t because she doesn’t have a mother. See, my grandma borned her once upon a time. Then she told her about her birthday. Then every time she had a birthday my grandma told her. But my grandma died.

I could tell Fredrick that of course his mother has a birthday, everyone has a birthday, but I know that to do so will merely put a halt to the conversation. He will not be convinced if he does not already believe it is true. Besides, he may have other reasons for depriving his mother of a birthday. She is about to have a baby and Fredrick has not yet acknowledged the fact. When Mollie asked him if his mother was growing a baby, he told her she was buying him a puppy.

Mollie eases in between us at the table. She knows when good conversations are in progress.

Mollie, Fredrick says his mother doesn’t have any more birthdays.

Why not?

"Because my grandma died and my mother doesn’t know how many candles to