E Buttigieg aimed high early

school, where learning is self-directed and hands-on. In 6th grade, his parents moved him to a more traditional private school.

The smart new kid was sometimes a target. Other kids would want to “take him down a peg,” his mother says. His unusual name drew snickers.

The experience, she believes, helped steel him to insensitive comments. He won them over by learning to prove himself without aggravating other kids.

Buttigieg remembers a teacher explaining that a child picking on him was just trying to get attention. Something clicked, he says, and he decided the best way to deal with bullies was to get to know them. The lesson still works, he told reporters on his bus.

“While you don’t want to reward bad behaviour, you do need to make sure that people feel seen.”

In his room, young Peter kept a collection of model planes and a poster of the inside of a cockpit. He aspired to become a pilot or astronaut, although his poor eyesight would make that impossible. He became fascinated with the leader closely associated with the space programme, JFK.

At around 11 or 12, when asked what he wanted for his birthday, Peter requested a copy of Profiles in Courage, Kennedy’s 1955 book on acts of political bravery by eight US senators throughout history (“I had no idea what that was,” says his friend Joe Geglio, who bought the book.)

Later, when Buttigieg decided to join the military, he would join the Navy, like JFK.

By the end of 8th grade, Peter was named valedictorian, which gave him a chance to deliver a speech. The adults left the gym marvelling at his poise and mature demeanour. It would not be the last time Buttigieg found a constituency in an older generation.

Classmate Loran Parker recalls her grandparents turned to her with what would become a familiar refrain: “Peter would make a great politician.”

When he arrived at high school, Buttigieg’s reputation preceded him. Teacher Julie Chismar recalls a buzz among French teachers. Peter began learning French in Montessori and was well on his way to fluency. He also took up Spanish and on his own started learning to read Korean from a friend.

It is difficult to find someone to utter a harsh word about young Peter. He was not a jock or the most popular kid in school, but he was not an outcast. Classmates described him as thoughtful, with a dry wit. If a kid in middle school or high school can respect a fellow kid, they respected him. He did not show off his intelligence or raise his hand to answer every question. He held back.

The introvert pushed himself beyond his comfort zone. He performed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He learned the didgeridoo and played the several-foot-long Australian wind instrument onstage.

Peter moved easily between groups of friends, but hung out mostly with a group of other smart kids. Friends said he never seemed to have the usual teenager angst about relationships.

Looking back, he says now he always felt different.

“Even though I wasn’t out, and in many ways was not really out to myself, I felt that kind of tension,” Buttigieg said on his campaign bus.

It was not just that he was gay, he said, but also that he was the son of a Mediterranean immigrant in an academic family who had a name that was easy to make fun of and hard to pronounce.

Several people close to Buttigieg say they never knew he was gay until he came out in his thirties, after he returned from his military tour in Afghanistan. He said at a CNN town hall in October that he was well into his twenties before he acknowledged it to himself.

At home, friends remember his parents as warm and supportive of whatever Peter wanted to pursue, his house inhabited by an affectionate rescue dog named Olivia, the walls lined with books, art and his mother’s photography, a piano filling the front room.

At the dinner table, they would have grown-up discussions.

“I was a kind of seriousminded kid, and they took me seriously,” Buttigieg said.

Those who have known Buttigieg from childhood say they recognize the same things during this presidential run that have driven him all his life.

He says he wants to do big things, to make an impact. Asked what is driving that, he becomes quiet and circumspect.

“I don’t know, I just do,” he said. “I mean, you only get one turn at life, right? And I think it’s really important that you do as much with it as you can.”