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Dovid and the Mixed-Up Names

Ages 6-9 | Story and 9 activities

On the first day of the new year, Dovid walks into class and calls his teacher "Mommy."

It slips out. He is thinking about his lunch, and Morah Gila looks up, and the word comes out of his mouth before he can catch it.

"Good morning, Mommy."

The room goes quiet for one second. Then someone giggles. Then someone else snorts. Then the whole class bursts out laughing.

Dovid's face turns red from his chin to his hair. He wants to crawl under his desk. He wants to disappear into the floor.

"I didn't mean it," he says, but his voice cracks, and the class only laughs harder.

Morah Gila smiles kindly. "Dovid, that happens to teachers all the time. I once called my own teacher 'Mommy,' and I was twenty years old."

"Really?" Dovid peeks up.

"Really. Everybody has a funny slip once in a while. It just means you feel comfortable here."

A few kids settle down. But Moishy in the back row whispers, "Mommy Dovid," and snickers.

Dovid's stomach drops. He slides down in his chair and stares at the desk. All morning, he keeps quiet. When Morah asks questions, he doesn't raise his hand. At recess, he sits on the bench by himself.

After a few minutes, his friend Yitzy comes and sits beside him. "You okay?"

"Everyone's laughing at me."

"They're laughing at the word," says Yitzy. "Not at you. I once called the principal 'Zaidy.'"

"You did?"

"In front of the whole school."

Dovid lets out a small laugh. "What did you do?"

"I laughed, too. And then I said, 'Well, he is very nice.' Everybody laughed, but kindly. By the next day, no one remembered."

Dovid thinks. The idea of laughing feels scary. But it feels scarier to sit alone.

When recess ends, he walks into the classroom. Moishy looks up with a grin, ready to tease him again.

"Hey, Mommy Dovid."

Dovid takes a breath. Then he smiles. "At least I didn't call the principal Zaidy," he says, grinning, and the class roars.

"Hey!" says Yitzy, grinning. "That was me!"

Everyone laughs again, but it is a different laughter, the warm kind. Even Moishy chuckles and says, "Okay, that was a good one."

Morah Gila winks. "A sense of humor is a gift."

That afternoon, Dovid notices something. The embarrassing moment has faded. His cheeks are back to normal. No one whispers anymore. The words were big in the morning and are small by the afternoon.

At home, he tells his mother the whole thing. She laughs until she has to wipe her eyes.

"You know what?" she says. "I'm proud of you. It takes courage to laugh at yourself."

Later, Morah Gila reads the class a funny story about a rabbi who calls his own wife "Rebbetzin" by mistake at breakfast. Dovid laughs the loudest. He sees that everyone, even grown-ups, trips over words.

The next day, a girl in his class calls the lunch lady "Bubby." Dovid is the first to say, "It happens to everyone."