The other day, my six-year-old, Margot, turned to me and declared: “Mommy, I’m going to show you how to draw something that you DON’T know how to draw.” She asked to borrow my notebook, which, naturally, I handed right over. I remember these things — learning some weird little doodle at school and feeling so psyched to have someone to show it to. I thought of that as she took her pencil, and carefully drew — well, wait. Do you want to guess? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with three vertical lines.
That’s right: THE S THING!!! Did you know kids are still drawing the S thing?! I almost screamed when Margot held it up to show me. “What?” she asked, as I gasped and cackled, my brain instantly flooded with elementary school ephemera: the drawings, the playground rhymes, the cootie shots and catchers. “Nothing!” I said. “That’s so great; you’ve GOT to show daddy.” He actually did scream when he saw it.
The incident really sent me down the rabbit hole — and I was delighted to find there is one, like, officially. “The Cool S,” is an artifact of childlore: the culture and rituals of children. By definition, it’s the stuff kids learn from other kids, then spread it among each other, entirely independent of adults or technology. Think: the buttercup test, “crack an egg on your head,” Miss Mary Mack, jinx (double jinx!), and anything you learned from your cousins. There’s a long history of anthropologic study on this topic, which I love, because really, what a fun and deeply annoying field of research it must be. Imagine trying to get a first-grader to explain why saying the same word at the same time means one of you is not allowed to speak again, until they are “un-jinxed.” (Has anyone ever been successfully un-jinxed, by the way? I think I’m still technically waiting.) Kids have apparently been drawing The Cool S since at least the 1980s, and still, no one’s figured out where it came from.
Ever since Margot drew the S, childlore has been my favorite conversation starter. It’s great to watch everyone’s faces go slack as their own memories unlock and spill out all over the place. “Remember typing ‘BOOBS’ on a calculator?!” someone will blurt. “Or — or that thing when you’re driving by a cemetery and you have to hold your breath?” I love hearing the tiny differences in details (some people grew up lifting their feet off the floor when passing a graveyard). But what’s wild is how many of us grew up doing, drawing, singing, and believing the exact same funny little things: Miss Susie had a steamboat, Batman smelled, the floor was lava, and stepping on cracks broke our mothers’ backs. What’s even more wild — and kind of wonderful — is knowing that, although we have aged out of the culture of childhood, there are children out there, still carrying on the silly, gross traditions of our people. That Cool S will still be popping up in notebooks long after we’re gone. And somewhere out there, a research scientist is trying to figure out the deal with six-seven. Godspeed, friend.
So, I’m DYING to ask: What childlore do you remember? Personally, I still can’t believe the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary.
P.S. The funniest game to play with kids (a childlore classic!) and kids’ hilarious passive-aggressive notes.
(Photo of a puppet show in Paris, 1963, by Alfred Eisenstaedt.)
