A few months into Daniel’s tenure, it became clear that one of the teachers on staff was “not working out.” She was an older woman who seemed rather set in her ways. Her room was often messy, Daniel and a coworker told me. She would, for example, leave moldy chickpeas in the cupboards or ignore some of the kids while they climbed on top of tables. When Daniel gave her instructions on how to improve, she would say, according to Daniel, “How do you know? You’ve never had kids.”

After a string of problems, Daniel sat the woman down and told her she was fired. He had expected her to be sad, but instead, she grew enraged.

“This is racism,” he remembers the woman, who was not a native English speaker, saying. Then she said, “I feel so blessed to be leaving here.”

Shortly after that, a review appeared on the daycare’s Facebook page purporting to be from a parent of one of the children. It called the daycare center “racist” and made references to the person being “blessed.” It seemed like it was written by someone who speaks English as a second language. Toward the end, as though in a throwaway line, it claimed Daniel touched kids inappropriately.

Daniel suspects the post was written by a relative of the fired employee. (When I contacted the fired employee, she denied that either she or a relative had written the post. She also said Daniel had never behaved inappropriately with a child.)

Everyone doubted Daniel would do such a thing. The daycare center’s cameras meant all the employees’ actions were visible. And as a supervisor, Daniel wasn’t in the classrooms much.

The owner of the daycare called the former employee and told her that the review needed to come down immediately or lawyers would get involved. The post was down within minutes, Daniel says. The timing added to his suspicion that the former employee did, indeed, have something to do with it.

However, since an allegation of child abuse counts as a “serious occurrence,” the owner had to contact the local Children’s Aid Society to report the incident. The idea of being tarred as one of “those” male preschool teachers who hurts kids terrified Daniel. The very thing that made Daniel different looked like it was about to bring about his downfall. That afternoon, Daniel paced the halls, crying. He figured his career was over.

Julia, Part I

The mirror image of Daniel is an American NASCAR driver named Julia Landauer. Like Daniel, she pursued the vocation she’s most passionate about, even though few people of her gender do.