Entries Tagged 'Mission: Unschoolable' ↓

It’s so hard.

Every day, I see this little sponge covered in blonde hair and blue eyes and applesauce, and I have to stop myself from going with what my guts speak. To silence them, cognisant that if I just pushed a little harder, or quizzed a little more, or held my hand over hers, then maybe she’d be further ahead.

I tell myself to shut up for the simple reason that I would never tell her that she should or will be a doctor, just because she cares so deeply about people’s welfare, hurts and heartaches: because it’s not up to me to push her as far as I can in any arena. Because I don’t want to predetermine her outcome.

I love that she’s in love with letters and words. Could I ensure that she was reading before preschool ended by focusing wholly on it? Maybe. She’s part-way there, already. But I have to pause, every time it occurs to me to intentionally teach her a new word. I have to let her come to me.

All of this constant abeyance doesn’t diminish my want to get her ahead. Or to get her to where the other kids in her preschool class might be.

I walk past those damn display boards outside of the classroom, with all of their crayoned normality, and I see all of the faces those four year olds are drawing. I hear her best friend count up to 49 and then ask what comes next.

I have watched her go from no numbers to plateauing at 14, and knowing 16 and 18 and 19 follow, but not which is first, or what’s between them, or that there is anything between at all. I refuse to pick up the art and ask her what it is, because I see how that might make art have to be about making a picture of something, instead of just creating. So she scribbles and I see how she takes up no more than 1/10th of each page, and often chooses to work in black. Heaven forbid a child psychologist ever see this work.

I refuse to make her practice counting, but I count out loud a lot, too, because she asks me to. I don’t tell her what numbers are without asking her what she might think, just in case she’s tricking me into thinking she doesn’t know them – this frustrates her but it doesn’t insult her.

I still have to cease comparing, because even if it wasn’t like putting dragonfruit up against every other form of produce, she’s three and I’m slotting her development with kids who will be turning five this year. With children who have had the benefit of a parent at home, 100% devoted to them and their learning potential. Kids who’ve been in art, gymnastics, ballet, swim, music and sign language classes. With kids who live with two parents, and have grandparents they see regularly, who don’t have dads who look at the clock on a bad day while counting down to when their next drink could be, and all of the other forms of nuclear our family detonates. Children who didn’t spend the first two years of their lives mainly in the throws of some sort of tantrum or sickness, or with a mother who was doing the same.

If it isn’t comparing, it’s about seeing genius in some facets of her. And that has to end, too.

If I really went for it, sure, I might make her be able to read before her 4th birthday. But what would it cost her? All of the lessons, the quizzes, the performing, and the expectation… would it help her to remain a lover of books, or would she grow to see them as work and unsatisfying, very quickly?

So, another day goes by where I reserve the jerk to list easy words on our white board, thinking I can teach them to her. I don’t sit down with paper and crayons, saying, “Here’s where the eyes go… and now, a nose…” I won’t pull out flash cards and try to fool her into thinking that rote memorization of digits is a game, simply because I worry that she won’t be the smartest motherfucker around.

And it’s so hard. Because now, now that schooling has been decided, it feels like a project. And if there’s anything I like better than the imagery of Jason Mraz naked, it’s a new project.

He says, “I know that you’re all in this hippy frame of mind where the normal world doesn’t have to exist, but man, it does. She’ll fall behind. She’ll lose all of her friends. She can’t handle being one of those kids.”

“She won’t lose friends and she won’t be behind in anything because she’ll be living. She’s already, if we’re talking measurements, ahead. But it’s more than that. She can’t sit in a room for eight hours and be told how to be herself, but smarter. Life isn’t just about math and science, it’s also about emotional intelligence. She’s incredible, you know. She’s so empathetic, she can’t focus on walking down the street without tripping, because she notices the homeless man crying on the corner. Then she asks why he’s sad. She’s been like that for most of her life.”

“So what you’re saying is, she got the worst things from both of us?”

He’s sarcastic, wine adding glee, making him insert humour into this potential A-bomb conversation I’m so passionate about.

I retort, beaming, and smack the smile from his face.

“She’s already better than either of us could ever aspire to be. She’s amazing and inspiring, period.”

He’s serious now, wondering whether the pills I’ve been taking has created this opinion, whether eggshells are what’s underfoot as he responds.

“Yeah, I know she’s great. She’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s three and she already has a fucking sense of humour. I just hope that life doesn’t beat that out of her. I hope that I can teach her how to be happy.”

He’s not getting it. He thinks that life is something that happens to you, not a mambo you do with each breath, seeking different and same within each blink and thought and memory. Imprinted on his soul is the message that jaded is a consequence of life span.

I take a deep breath and my eyes feel like they’re shining maniacally.

“We can’t teach her to be happy. We have to guide her to learn how to fall from happiness and bounce back. We have to let her see that she doesn’t have to be happy all of the time.”

Pensive. No more jokes. I prod, “Do you think that being told to sit still, to learn about fractions at 10am, and that she needs to fit into a little tiny box with the other children will help her learn that?”

He looks at me, so crystal clear that I can’t see the tannins and thc cloud his mind.

“Okay. But she has to have scheduled time with other kids. I mean it. I don’t want her missing out on a social life. And you need to play with her more.”

This post is in response to this week’s {w}rite of passage challenge. I can’t add the linky, but visit the page to participate or find other writers, hell-bent on ripping the band-aids off of their writing.