It is coming increasingly clear that “we are who we are.” I didn’t choose to be a happily married heterosexual male any more than any of my gay friends and relatives chose to be who they are. “Straight Camp”-okay, there’s no such thing as “Straight Camp”, somebody made that up-doesn’t work. How do I know? Why am I so thoroughly convinced that nobody “chooses” to be gay any more than I “choose” not to be? Because you could threaten, coerce, cajole, punish, reward, berate, or beat me. And I would still like women.
You know what I mean.
It’s just that simple.
I like women; I have always liked women; It seems likely that I always will like women-my wonderful wife in particular.
If the smart money is on “we are who we are” when it comes to an issue as fundamental as sexual orientation, why are parents so completely unaccepting when it comes to the abilities of their kids?
Motivation and “time served” have to be the accepted standards. Results are an absurd criteria. Offensive really. Yelling at your kid to like math is like yelling at me not to be attracted to my wife.
Good luck with that.
Yes, we can all try harder; yes, we can all get (marginally) better. Sure, if you went to the gym five days a week instead of two, you would be more likely to get rid of that tire around your tummy. You could stop telling that old joke about keeping your six-pack abs safe behind a protective layer of fat.
Similarly, if you quit your job and devoted yourself full time to running, you could get faster and run longer. But you could still never finish a marathon in under three hours. You could certainly never compete with Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia who beat the best in the world at Boston last month. He ran 26.2 miles in two hours nine minutes and something. You could take a taxi cab to the 25-mile mark and jump into the race like Rosie Ruiz and he still beats you by several hundred yards.
And yes, if you studied math day and night, you could improve. But there is a limit (truly horrible pun intended) to how much better you could get. You know the Reimann Hypothesis that the best mathematical minds in the world have been working on since 1859? You’re not going to crack it. From where you are now, it would take you a fair amount of consistent study just to understand the question.
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Berhhard Riemann
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So why is there this ridiculous discord in your house about the results of your daughter’s math class? The only thing worse than yelling at your daughter about her math grade is yelling at your daughter about her rank in class. “As long as she’s in the top ten percent, I’ll be happy.”
This just in: not everyone can be in the top ten percent. Think about it: By definition, only ten percent of the children can be in the top ten percent.
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Deborah Meier
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Encouraging your daughter to see her classmates as obstacles to be overcome rather than colleagues to help along leads us to Deborah Meier’s wonderful example of the kindergarten teacher telling the children to line up to go out to recess. Deborah tells the story better, but it goes something like this: “Okay, children, we are going to line up for recess. I want each one of you to be first in line. No pushing, no shoving.”
I love this story because it makes perfect sense at first glance as I think of one adorable five-year-old making her way to the front of the line. But when I think of all those precious kindergarten kids scrambling to be first, I realize how absurd it is to have them compete.
The ideas in this essay can be summarized as follows:
Not everyone can be first. It is demeaning to your child to make her success contingent upon the failure of her classmates.
If you must praise your child for her accomplishments-rather than just loving her unconditionally-focus on her motivation and effort rather than on her results.
Accept your kid for who she is-even if she never wins the Boston Marathon or gets an A in calculus.
And whatever you do, don’t try to change who your kid is regarding which partners they find attractive-because they are who they are.
