For my first article, I’d like to talk about something I realized during the summer. Unlike most people I know, I didn’t spend my time traveling or partying or whatever. Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t have a boring summer at all. It was actually a pretty great summer! Beaches are great here in Puerto Rico.

This summer, I worked during June and July as a volunteer counselor at Puerto Rico's Museum of Art's summer camp. Besides the fact that I got a boatload of community service hours, I had an amazing time working there. The people I worked with were wonderful.

The best part of it all, though, was working with the kids in my group. My friend and I were in charge of the older group (8 to 12-years-old) for both months, with a few other friends coming to work in July. I could go on forever about the kids in our care, but I’ll just highlight a few and then get to the three that really struck me.

Of course, due to safety and privacy reasons, I’ll be using different names for each of them.

“Amy” was an eight-year-old girl who never, and I mean never, calmed down. When she wasn’t running around the classroom giving me a slight heart attack whenever she went too close to the edge of a table or barely missed toppling another kid’s sculpture, she was talking ceaselessly. A few memorable things she talked about (mainly because she repeated them so much) were:

• Hatsune Miku
• Chicken
• How she excelled at probably anything

“Sans” was a ten-year-old boy who I honestly believed to be a teddy bear incarnate. I nick-named him like this because he really loves Undertale, and his enthusiasm for it got me into it as well. Sans was sweet and kind in every way. There was another boy in class (let’s call him “Prepreteen Angst” or “PPTA”) who didn’t interact much with anyone. He was always either playing some weird racing game on his tablet or begrudgingly doing the work he was supposed to do. Whenever someone tried to talk to him, he’d answer in short words, barbed words, or no words at all. Sans, however, always tried to befriend him, and even succeeded to an extent. I mean, how could anyone not like Sans? He’s a great kid. Everyone in the class liked him. He made up this game, a sort of LARP (Live-Action Role Play) where everyone in class created a character and battled it out with their powers out in the garden. I was roped into that game as "the Great Empress". He also drew me a Toriel poster that I still have. We debated on whether the Sith or the Jedi were better, too. The thing is, he lives in the south end of the island, which by our standards, is really, really far. At the end of the month, we promised each other that the next time we saw each other, he’d have listened to some Hamilton songs and I’ll have finished Undertale.

“Nathan” and his little brother “Spider Monkey” were ten and eight, respectively. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way Nathan held open every door for everyone, or the way Spider Monkey would leap onto my back at random moments during the day and cling for five whole minutes. I also won’t forget the time they almost didn’t finish the lion drawings due to much procrastination.

The kids I will really remember forever, though, are the triplets.

When I met them in June, they were nine years old. Their birthday was on the twentieth, and was celebrated with Krispy Kreme donuts. When they walked in, that first day, I thought I was hallucinating because three clones just walked into the classroom with identical smiles on their identical faces. Everyone immediately took an interest in them. I was never really able to differentiate them physically. They were each so different but so alike at the same time. In the end, I could identify them by personality. I’ll name them as such here.

The eldest and the sweetest was “Unicorn.” I’m naming him this because he really does love unicorns. There are at least three unicorn drawings made by him in my notebook. His skateboard art was a purple unicorn. His character for the LARP game was a unicorn, too. Unicorn was the gentlest of the bunch. He always wore an oversized shirt over his clothes.

The second boy, and the most flamboyant of everyone was “Sailor Moon.” He is a sight to see. Every artwork from him was either pastel and very aesthetic or full of color and rainbows. He especially loves ombrés. The day we had a dance party, this boy embodied Shakira in Cha Cha Slide. He loves Destiny’s Child and made his mask in the form of the Sailor Moon cat. His sass reached unbelievable levels. One time, during a confession game, he said to one girl, “You should confess that you scream too much! Every day I leave here with a headache because of your screaming!” I was dumbstruck. Another memorable quote is from one of their garden games, where he was playing the battle game with the others. He yelled, “FLOWER TORNADO!” and waved his arms like a high-powered windmill. My friend and I laughed ourselves hoarse.

The youngest was “Merman.” He loves mermaids the way Unicorn loves unicorns. He had me draw six, maybe more. Our joint masterpiece was an underwater landscape filled with corals, fish, and mermaids. His favorite color was blue. He wore it every day. He even gave himself blue skin in the self-portrait. He likes Sailor Moon as well, and he and his brother made matching masks. In the garden game, he was a sea prince with jewels encrusted everywhere.

The thing that struck me about these three boys was their blatant disregard for gender roles. In this society, we are taught that girls are supposed to like rainbows and unicorns and mermaids, and boys like other things. But the triplets were raised differently. They were allowed to like what they liked, and the result was these incredibly mature children who created amazing artwork.

Sailor Moon painted “kawaii cats” on several of his pieces. Every single one had at least one pink object. He even used up all the pink oil pastels when he did his llama art. Unicorn loved using light purple on his art. Merman never went without adding blue somewhere.

Their sibling relationship is also astonishingly well. You can easily see how much the boys love each other. They decided that on their final work, the masks, they would do triplet cats. The end result was beautiful.

A moment that really touched my heart was the Monday after the Orlando shootings, when I came to work in morning with my nails painted with a rainbow. Sailor Moon took my hand and complimented them. My friend explained to him what they meant, and he took it in stride. He didn’t question the fact that the victims were LGBT+. He was horrified that something so terrible could have happened.

I think the most important piece is their self-portraits. I believe that a self-portrait is to make an image of how one sees oneself. And these boys really killed it with theirs. Unicorn gave his hair purple tips and painted a fuchsia sweater. Merman, as I said before, painted his skin blue and his hair, purple. Sailor Moon made his self-portrait all pastel colors. His skin was pale yellow and his hair was pink. In the background, he painted a beautiful rainbow. He painted the rainbow after we told him about the Orlando Pulse.

I met their mother at the end of the session. She told my friend and I about how much the boys talked about us. She and her family enthused with the triplets about their art. She was delightful, and in the end, asked for our numbers to babysit the triplets sometime. The way this woman raised her children is the way I believe all children should be raised.

The art these boys produced would, in this society, be considered “girly”. In fact, some of the other camp workers laughed at their art behind their backs. But I think these boys are on the right path. They have been raised to be free to love whatever they wish, and I commend their mother for that. Gender roles are becoming an obsolete term, and the triplets are the new generation. I wish with all my heart for more people like them in years to come.