A story about little Mr. A and little me
Maybe some of you were reading something into my post that wasn’t there. Let me expand a little more. (This is way too long for a friday post, so sorry about that.)
Case Study #1
When Mr. A was in elementary school, he went to school each morning with his hair unbrushed. At some point, someone made fun of him because his hair was sticking up all crazy. He didn’t want other kids to make fun of him, so each morning after he got to school, he would lick the palm of his hand and use it to smush his hair into a more appropriate style.
Then one morning, some kid saw him rubbing spit in his hair, so they made fun of him for THAT. Mr. A asked his mom to get him a comb, which she did. Then, he would take the comb and run it under water and use it to slick his hair down. His hair was too wet and looked funny, but when the other kids made fun of him, he didn’t understand why. He had fixed the sticking-up hair problem, he stopped the spit-hair problem, what did they want from him??? He felt like he couldn’t win and the other kids were making fun of him because he had CHINESE hair (even though they never said anything about him being Chinese in the taunts).
When Mr. A told me that story the other night, my heart broke for little A. Mr. A’s parents were really not together enough to worry about things like the kid’s appearances when they went to school. They sent him to school in dirty, mismatched clothes too. He remembers kids making fun of him because of that also.
From my understanding, Mr. A was a dorky, geeky kid by the time he got to high school. He didn’t fit in. He didn’t understand WHY he didn’t fit in. Even when he was on the football team and was decent at playing football, he didn’t understand why being good at football didn’t help him make friends with the other football guys.
It is entirely possible that Mr. A would have been dorky and geeky no matter what. As an adult, he is not at all socially awkward. He is cool. People like him. He is successful personally and professionally.
Case Study #2
When I started school, my mother made sure that I was dressed appropriately. She would spend a lot of time making sure my clothes were in good condition, matching and ironed. She even used to iron my jeans. My hair was always immaculately brushed. It was brushed and tied back so tightly it hurt sometimes, but I always looked clean and well-cared for.
When I started kindergarten in our small town, my parents were 23 and 25. They had attended high school in that same small town and everyone knew the scandal of my mother’s teenage pregnancy. My mom worked over-time to make sure we didn’t look like any different than other kids. My mom is very shy, but she attended our school functions, talked to our teachers and mingled with other parents when necessary.
I was pretty socially successful in school, even though I was smart and took all the advanced classes. I had friends. I was accepted. I fit in. Heck, sometimes I was even popular. Now that I am grown up, people like me. I know how to be social. I am really happy with my life.
Analysis
The social aspect of school for Mr. A was usually pretty painful. He didn’t understand the rules and maybe the social jockeying didn’t come natural to him. He didn’t understand why he didn’t fit in and no one explained it to him or helped him stick out less.
For me, the social aspects of school were not a big deal most of the time. I was generally considered an average kid in early elementary school, not picked on not particularly noticeable. As I got older, I did (in retrospect) understand the rules of the social game. Sometimes I chose to play by those rules, but when I didn’t, I understood what the social ramifications of those choices would be.
Maybe Mr. A matured late. Maybe his brain wasn’t programmed to understand social dynamics until he got to college. That happens with a lot of people.
But maybe not.
If Mr. A had gone to school looking AVERAGE, just dressed like the average, clean kid, maybe things would have been a little easier for him. Maybe if he walked into school not sticking out because he was a) dressed weird, b) smelling like spit hair c) with weird crazy parents who were completely socially inappropriate with other parents and teachers and d) the only Asian kid at the class, MAYBE just MAYBE he wouldn’t have been pegged as a weirdo and outcast from day one.
Maybe if I had gone to school unkept and poorly dressed, I would have been picked on. Maybe I would have been called names that referenced my parents teen-sex scandal. Or maybe not. Who can say?
The fact is, I am sending my kids to school with their best foot forward.
Because they are not white/ are biracial/ are Chinese/ are adopted (choose any or all of the above), they already have one thing that makes them “different”. I don’t need to make some kind of political or personal statement by sending them to school dressed differently than other kids, carrying a weird lunch or whatever.
As their mother, as someone who doesn’t want to suffer unnecessary teasing or taunting, I feel that is the very least I can do. Does this mean I will teach them to fit in at the expense of their uniqueness? Of course not. But I will help them understand the consequences of those choices so they can make an informed decision. If they are quirky in some way, we will try to figure out a way for them to be themselves and still not have a target on their backs.
If you want to read that as I am trying to groom them to be “popular” as some comments suggest, well, that is your perogative.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
As someone who didn’t fit in, for a whole host of reasons that could, in part, have been headed off by parents and teachers (but weren’t), I SO totally get this.
Nice blog. I pop in from time to time and relate to a lot of what you say.
- Mama to an entering kindergartener adopted from DH’s birth country, uncharacteristicaly obsessed with making sure my kid’s clothes are stain and rip free
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
One thing I love about you is this: if you agree with AmFam, good. And if you don’t agree with AmFam, who cares.
I think you’ll find all kinds of lunchtime diversity. But I think you will still find all kinds of Queen Bees & Wannabees not only among the kids at school but also among the parents at school. You can’t get away from it! (At least not where we live). There is still so much judgment amongst moms.. which ones work, which ones are at home, whose mom volunteers in the classroom, whose doesn’t, whose is involved in the PTA and whose isn’t (or little league/ballet/Irish step dance or WTF ever), whose Mom threw the biggest birthday party, etc. I hate it. I love, love, love my kids, but I hate the BS that comes with standing around the schoolyard.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Any decent parent should DEFINITELY make great strides to help their children keep from being picked on.
I feel for the (soon to be picked on) children of some of those commenters on your last post.
I would willingly fling my body between my child and a bully… but, as we all know, this just makes matters worse. What’s a parent to do? I won’t even put my kids on the bus, due to injustices I felt and witnessed as a child. And I was reasonable popular. I does more damage than people are often willing to admit.
You do whatever you feel is right. No one has M and L’s best interest at heart like you and Mr. A.
Fight that Mommy battle!!!! They will thank you later.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
i completely agree with you. my husband and i talk about this kind of stuff all the time, and our son is only 7 months old - my husband mostly lands on the “he should do/dress/eat/etc. whatever he wants, and screw the kids who care about it.” and yet, we both had kind of nasty social experiences in childhood, so it befuddles me. i say, personal freedom and expression is all good, but within the confines of the general rules of the society (for example, the society of kindergarten) you are inhabiting. because until you are a little more grown-up and are aware of/can manage the repercussions (as you nicely put it above) of “breaking the rules,” it makes life a lot easier to live within them.
(of course, i am not suggesting that someone “not break the rules” by pretending to be who they are not - adopted, gay parents, not especially wealthy parents, whathaveyou. i just think parents should know, as you say, what an acceptable level of cool is.)
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Oh, God, it’s heartbreaking just to read that. My mom, who I know loved me more than life itself, never really fixed my hair or prettied me up when I was little, not even for picture day.
I know she didn’t do it out of neglect per se, but she just didn’t place a lot of value on hair appearance, and she didn’t think about the ramifications of that for me as an elementary-school kid. I wasn’t ever the bottom-of-the-barrel picked-on kid, but I was always in the bottom five.
Even when I got to be a teenager and my face broke out, she didn’t take me to the dermatologist. I had terrible acne, and I still have the scars from it. I don’t think she secretly wanted me to be ugly, but I just don’t think she ever thought about it. She was very cerebral, and she was always the “ugly duckling” growing up, and I just don’t think things like this ever occurred to her.
When I read your first blog post about this I was just shouting “You go, girl!” because I’m so glad you recognize how your actions in this area can help M and L as they make their way through school. They are so lucky to have you on their team!!
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I was picked on A LOT in school. I attended various schools in the Midwest where I was the only or one of the very few Asians there. I got picked on for everything. Some of it was meant to be funny (at least to others), some of it was just outright cruel.
Anyway, I can totally understand why you are concerned about the appearance of your child. While you can never totally control every aspect of your child’s school experience, there’s no reason to intentionally handicap them. I probably would have been picked on no matter what, but if my parents would have just made sure I was groomed and paid a little attention to me I think it would have made a world of difference.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
It’s great that you’re taking such a proactive stance
Also, for some of the other parents out there, be aware if there are any popular and culturally-insensitive movies that are coming out.
One of my closets friends in elementary school was this Indian girl (we were one of the few non-white kids) and when Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom came out she was teased mercilessly.
I remember the next day during lunch time a group of kids went through her lunchbox asking her why she ate snakes and spiders and just making fun of her.
She was devastated and I remember for the next few weeks we would just hide away to eat lunch by ourselves…
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
In highschool, Mr A wore the top of his Tae Kwon Do uniform to school because he thought it looked cool. He was asking for it that day.
Its funny though, people that don’t try to fit in tend to have a lot of friends and be happier in the long run. Kids pick on the weaker kids. …adults do the same thing.
http://www.AnUrbanStory.com
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I have to applaud you on your decision to make sure your kids look cute, well-groomed and somewhat fashionable, what other kids consider “normal”. I’m a youth sports photographer so I see lots of kids in all kinds of situations. Simple things like making sure your boys are wearing footie socks instead of halfway up the calf socks like their grandpas can be huge in making a first impression. I know a lot of people take pride in their and their children’s quirkiness, but really, their little lives can be so much easier if they don’t stand out as odd-looking. I have a 16-year-old son who has a somewhat quirky personality, but he dresses well (meaning like everybody else, t-shirts, khaki shorts, hoodies, jeans and footie socks), is actually quite handsome (now that he uses Proactiv for his acne) and is very athletic, so he doesn’t get picked on. People who don’t care about appearances, I know, think people who do are shallow, but I was raised in a home where appearances were not important and I swore that I would not raise my children that way. We were told that our brains were more important than our looks but I know you can be smart and still look good. I do and so do my sons.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I’m just intrigued to see how this all works out for you. And I look forward to hearing about M’s forays into the school world.
I think that there’s a special case for immigrants (and this can be immigrants from the north to the south of the US or vice versa, or whatever not just immigrants from further away), who don’t know how to fit in, and that A seems to have fallen into that little loophole. For other kids I think that the mismatched clothes combine with quirkiness, and that mismatched clothes without quirkiness wouldn’t do much to one’s social standing.
I let my kids wear what they want, but we have money, and everyone knows it. So, if my girls waste length hair is scruffy looking, or she’s wearing orange and green, or my boy wears pajamas to school, or the tiger costume everyone knows that it’s not ’cause they’re uncared for. My goal is to search out environments where my kids can be quirky if they want to be, rather than to try to smooth the quirk out of them. It ads zest to living, and, being hapa kids from athiest parents, born of quirky parents, they’re going to be different no matter what, so I’m working on the premise that a school that isn’t going to tolerate mismatched clothing (about which we can do something) isn’t going to tolerate their being different in the other ways (about which we can do nothing).
(Of course, if I thought their clothing was having a significant impact, both clothing and the environment would be up for scrutiny. As an example, I made sure to talk to a lot of mothers about culture norms before letting my daughter pierce her ears, hoping that this would mitigate any damage for those who think of ear piercing as a grown-up activity, like make up).
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Ooh, I was the unkempt outcast kid throughout high school. I was 17 years old before I owned a pair of jeans, because my parents didn’t wear jeans, and didn’t see the point. My mother didn’t (and doesn’t) wear a bra, so instead of dragging me off for one when it was clear that was appropriate, she left it to me to ask for one (and I wasn’t the kind of kid who could initiate that discussion).
So A has name-brand clothes (from the consignment store, because that’s how I can afford them) and Stride Rite shoes, and gets her face washed and hair brushed every morning. I don’t think that’s going to keep her from being on the fringes (”How was recess today?” “Great! I played all by myself!”), but at least it might mitigate her natural weirdness, rather than exacerbating it.
OTOH, I don’t dictate what she wears, other than high-quality name-brand stuff. She won’t wear pants, just dresses or skirts. She wears knee socks pulled all the way up. She matches a coral pink dress with red socks with bubble-gum pink shoes. Because I have tried to go there, and retreated in ignominious defeat.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I can totally see where you are coming from. I always make sure my kid is neat and clean, too, with clothes similar to what the other kids are wearing. (Although with clothing, he automatically won’t wear it if he doesn’t like it. So that’s pretty easy for me.)
You shared with us books for adults on raising kids. Can you share with us some of the books in your kids’ library for helping them to be well-rounded and tolerant? Thanks!
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:45 pm
nope, I get it. why make it any harder than it has to be- kids under the best of circumstances will have it tough at least once, so why not make the stuff we can control a bit easier for our kids……we teach them the ABC’s, their colors and shapes so they aren’t in “the low academic group” why is it so unreasonable to teach them that their are “rules” socially too?- so good for you for helping M have an easier time adjusting to a new environment….just my opinion…….
Meg
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:43 am
I love the eclectic look for kids with cool funky mismatched clothes. However, they cost way too much money for me to clothe my toddler. If I wanted that look from consignment, I would be constantly shopping since she outgrows her clothes every season.
As parents, we pick our battles for ourselves and our children. My hapa child is a minority of a minority. I understand choosing not to burden her with out of style clothing or odd lunches. (Odd being dried fish, kimchi, pickled radish, other “stinky” foods.) However, we love that bento boxes are so hip!
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:04 am
School uniforms.
I know, kids still find ways to be different, but man, am I loving the school uniform.
Both my spouse and I were total misfits in school. I hated, hated, hated school. And having the wrong clothes just made it worse.
So far my girl is much more social and fits in much better than I ever did. Hopefully it will continue.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:13 am
I am having a mini-freakout about my daughter’s birthday party tomorrow. And these fitting in posts are hitting quite a nerve for me, so I think that’s what’s pushing my buttons. I remember almost fitting-in in school. Not that it caused me great anguish, but not that I thought it was easy. I probably have more social stress than any other issue as an adult, so maybe the past casts longer shadows than I understand. My freakout right now is that I don’t know how to do this affluent suburb thing. I grew up in the nearby city and I knew those conventions. My daughter is entering grade 2. We’ve been here a year. She has friends, but not really good friends. I don’t think I know how to give her a boost–or if she even needs one. And I am now feeling like my house is not nice enough, my stuff is not nice enough, hell, my life is not nice enough. And I never really questioned my intrinsic worth like this in the city. Agh!
And I do get the line you’re trying to straddle to help the girls fit in. I have been worried about my kids fitting in, but maybe not enough. Or maybe not in the right ways. Thought provoking.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:19 am
I totally understand what you are saying. I get comments from my friends and family about my daughter having so many clothes and always dressing nice. I try to explain that my daugher has things that are going to make her “different” from others in her class (she is Chinese, she is adopted, she only has a mom and not a dad…) if I can make one thing easier for her I will. That is one of the reason that I make sure she is dressed nice and her hair looks nice and she has nice shoes. I can make sure that the way she dresses is not another reason for her to be “different”. I know that kids can be hurtful and I want to keep her from as much hurt as I can.
Lisa
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 am
I understand your thinking. My mother always tried to get me to dress like the other kids so I would fit in better, but it never worked for me. I refused to wear jeans or cut my hair (and yes, my mom is very please with my recent haircut, at last). You could probably psychoanalyze it a hundred ways-with my hand differences, I certainly knew from the start of preschool that clothes would never make me fit in. But, you know, I was relatively happy. I had my 2 best friends and my books, great relationships with my teachers, and a lot of respect from the “popular” kids-who would sometimes defend me if something was said.
My insecurities in school were more about my home life than the social order. It certainly hurt to be teased, but I still had my own little word with my friends.
And as an adult, I am still counter culture, but do have the social skills to move confidently in the mainstream as needed for work. Heck, I crashed a professional party last month (had to make a scene to get in) where I knew no one and came out with several new connections ; )
I do understand your point, and maybe I should stop cutting (butchering) s’s hair myself-but despite my mother’s better judgment, I insisted on wearing german braids and long jumpers to school, and I refused to eat in the lunch room because the smells made me nauseous. And I had an amazing experience at my 20th reunion. As someone else suggested-seems even those who teased me admired something-and 20 years later were able to share that with me.
Of course, s is so comfortable with people that it’s hard to imagine her being teased. I may feel differently the first time she comes home in tears. ~lmc
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
I totally agree with AmFam that you do NOT want to handicap your child further, if your child is low on the social ladder. What’s the point? If your child is low on the social ladder, they already have enough teasing and problems to deal with. YES, everyone needs to learn to handle being teased, and being teased can make you stronger, etc… But NO, it is not good when it is to the point that it is beating your child down, and then to make things worse the parents do things (that the child cannot control) that make the child an even easier target.
My parents never really made things worse for me, but I was so socially inept that I was at the bottom for years. There are some good sides to this, for example it has made me kinder, and sympathetic to social underdogs, but years of being uninvited, unwanted, etc., leave deep scars, too. There are many times, as an adult, that I have ended up sabotaging myself socially because of scars left from my childhood.
For example, if I am not quite sure whether I was invited to a party or not, then I often feel it’s safer to just assume that I wasn’t actually invited, because there is a strong feeling conditioned in my mind that “I am not the sort of person people want at parties”. So then I don’t go to the party. Also, although I am happy and have an interesting(?) life in another country, I often feel very nervous around people who I perceive as being above me socially. This probably sounds stupid to many people, but it can take years and a huge effort to undo the damage of a socially inept childhood.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I’m glad that you further addressed the comments from the other post. I just put a long note on that one, because some of the other noters made me feel…huffy. =) I don’t really have anything new to add now, because I agree with you 100%. (I was the “smart girl” and never totally fit in. I don’t remember lunches being a problem, but we all basically took PB&J, anyway. I do remember that, at one point, it was essential to bring a brown bag instead of a lunchbox or you were a “baby.”)
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Your blog is having problems. I just typed a note and had it disappear. :/ Won’t bother with that again, but: I totally agree with you.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Oh look…now it reappeared. Wtf?
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Just to reiterate: I totally, 100% understand what you’re saying, because I was Mr. A and the teasing still haunts me.
But I also have to tell you, based on personal experience and MANY heartfelt conversations with Worrier Daughter (whose anxieties are legion but have never included fitting in via clothing or food, which tells me that clothing and food are not, currently, issues around which social status revolves at our particular school): it’s possible that M’s school will not be filled with bitchy Queen Bee fashion-and-food arbiters from day 1.
I didn’t understand the role-playing-game “Charisma” category fully until my kids were in kindergarten, and I could see that certain kids just drew the classroom to them. Luckily, in our experience, of three kindergartens, only one of those charismatic kids used that power to vicious ends. And even in that case, it was a question of deciding what games were played on the playground — and NOT of who was included, because the adults supervising the playground made sure that anyone who wanted to play, DID play.
I’m sharing this with you because social situations are, undoubtedly, my primary concern for my kids in grade school, and I have been repeatedly, pleasantly surprised by how different the environment is, than I expected. I hope you’re pleasantly surprised, too.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I think the distinction is between encouraging your kids in the things about themselves that are different and truly unique and that can flower into something great and special for them in the long-run, and gently heading them off at the pass with things that are different but have no particular value in themselves and are just going to get them picked on.
Being different and special doesn’t mean one absolutely *has* to be ostracized by definition, and being ostracized can have really terrible long-term consequences. So Amber, I think you’re hitting just the right balance in letting your kids be themselves, but making sure that the exterior details (that in themsleves are meaningless but if out of whack would get them picked on) are in place .
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
P.S. I think that for the parents who are getting angry at this concept, it is completely about them and their issues. They’re seeing their children as an extension of themselves, and wanting to make a statement about themselves through their children.
I think that being unique and being secure in one’s own uniqueness gives people character. Being relentlessly picked on at a young age just gives people issues.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Totally agree with you. My son has two moms in a smallish city where this is rare and most of his friends are in “traditional” households. I always dress him in one particular (expensive) brand of clothing. He is tidy, etc. This is to help him fit in but also to help him become tagged as something other than, “You know X, he’s the one with two moms.” Now he is, “You know X, he’s the one who always wears [brand].” Debate the merits of this consumerism all you want, he can fight that battle when he’s older. It’s a jungle out there on the playgrounds.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Not a bit. In fact, it seems to be absolutely brilliant to teach/give your kids the power to choose whether they want to be popular or not–like you said, to understand the ramifications of deciding not to be popular if that’s less important to them than competitive butterfly collecting or whatever weird thing they love.
I was a weird, geeky kid. but not in a Mr. A bullied way. In the way that my personality was such that I had utter contempt for anyone who would go out of her way to BE popular. Kind of reverse-snobbery, if you will (not so uncommon in high school, but I was precocious on this point).
Seems to me your girls will be equipped to choose what makes them feel best about themselves–fitting in or bucking the crowd or–most maturely–a bit of both depending on the stakes.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I was the weirdo in public school. I was the one with the bad haircut (Asian bowl), polyester suits, geeky, nerdy, brainy … I look at pictures of myself as a kid and I cringe. How could my mother let me go to school like that? Not only let me, but make me (she gave me the worst haircuts…). I got bullied, boy did I get bullied.
Only in highschool, when I started making my own money, shopping for myself … did I come out of my shell. My little sister didn’t do as badly because I looked out for her somewhat, but with only 20 months between us, it was marginal. I made it my mission that my baby brother, 11 years younger, would NEVER look or feel that way.
I’m the same now with my kids. I get the brands, the looks, and I’m just fine with that… because kids can be CRUEL. And shape your life.
Funny, in the end I did get the “cool guy from highschool”, you know the one with the tight painter pants?
Where we live though, are almost a norm, so we are lucky that way.
This was an excellent story. I can’t believe I haven’t been by there more often. Great writing!
August 24th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
PS: I meant to say above, where we live, kids of mixed race/culture, are not that extraordinary. So our kids aren’t singled out for that reason anyway.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
No, I don’t think you’re grooming them to be popular. Children crave conformity as a form of social acceptance, and being like the others i.e. clean, neat, have the “right” things, is what it’s all about.
We try very hard to do this for my stepdaughter. She has all of the external assistance we can offer (clothes, purse, backpack, etc…), but at 12 she is still the kid with the spazzy personality that just can’t fit in, which is devestating. All we (and you) can do is be supportive and help them find their own paths. And if that means “fitting in” and being just like everyone else, well, that’s okay.
August 24th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I think you’re doing the best thing you can do for your kids. You are smart to consider these issues. We all want the best (and often in school that means the least painful!) experience for our kids. It’s not squashing their individuality to give them the tools they need to avoid being picked on for things like clothing and grooming. Most of the time when I see a parent so horrified by this concept, who claim they want to raise eclectic, non-mainstream kids, I just can’t help but think it’s all about THEM. My daughter (going into 2nd grade) definitely has her own likes and styles for dressing herself. I do steer her when necessary, though, about what’s best to wear to school, and grooming is not an option here. And honestly? I tend to think that my kids are more free to develop their individuality and personal interests, etc, when they aren’t worried or being bullied about things like clothing and appearance.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I totally know what you mean about being the immigrant freak. My husband wore a homemade suit to school the first year he moved here. The next year I think he wore a ninja turtle tshirt and jeans that were too short. Though that is a very different situation… and of course every kid should be cleaned and groomed at school. Its not like I buy my kid 70’s vintage clothes or polyester jumpers.. They definitely dress like every other kid at their school but they are allowed to wear a pirate hat or a chinese tshirt or a t-shirt they made with their name on it without a thought from me. Kind of sad that people automatically think my kids will get picked on. They are actually quite popular b/c of their personalities. They are kind of proud to be different. They readily tell everyone they are half-chinese and all of our family differences. Though again it might be the community 60% of my son’s class is some sort of minority (mostly half something) so its nothing special really. Every kid is dressed like little funky adults.
and… remember you are the same chick who put out penis models on the curb free for the taking… so I would think it would be more likely M would be wearing skull and crossbones on her shirt the first day (like mine wanted to do to her church-based preschool) :0)
August 25th, 2008 at 4:18 am
I have to say after reading the last few posts on your blog, I think some of the commenters are confusing the idea of having different cultural norms within different communities with non-conformity.
If you are part of a community in which it is acceptable and expected to dress quirkily, and for children to have “different” lunches than the “usual” - dressing your children (or allowing them to dress themselves) quirkily and packing homemade vegan lunches is the height of conformity. It is the exact same thing as packing PB&J every day while dressing your child in Gap.
Different communities have different standards, and part of childhood, especially once children hit the school years, is learning what is acceptable and unacceptable and where they can stretch the boundaries to best match their personalities and desires.
I have a feeling that the ‘progressive’ communities that some posters have described in regards to wider menu diversity and quirky dressing would actually be quite intolerant to children who came to school preaching evangelical Christianity or heck, pro-Republican stances. And parents wouldn’t be praising those children for their strong minority view on religion, but would rather more likely be talking about the ‘brain washing’ that was clearly going on in that child’s home.
Each community (big and small) have its own cultural norms that the group conforms to. Even if “non-conformity” is the norm being presented as desirable. To pretend otherwise seems dangerously naive, at best. And for those parents who do push/encourage their children to flout the norms of their chosen community - well, I have to ask what others in this group already have - are your children truly the speshul snowflakes you believe them to be or are they actually conforming quite nicely to the expectations of their environment (however non mainstream you might believe those expectations to be) and if they aren’t conforming to those expectations -why are you (as a parent) invested in your child not conforming to the group/community expectations?
August 25th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
yikes.
Today was the first day of school. My kids are attending preschool at a low income school which isn’t in our neighborhood because my partner teaches there. We decided we’d rather have them in a place where we understood the variables.
We get high quality handmedown’s - polo, oskosh, tommy… and we could keep them dressed really well, but they would not fit in at that school.
My 4 yo daughter would not wear the cute dress we’d picked out last night, and her foster sister put her in a long sleeve pajama shirt and Ariel shorts. I kept the shorts, but put her in an oshkosh polo shirt. There are lines we won’t cross, at least in the beginning. Her twin brother was totally and completely in spiderman - from toes to lunchbox. Not what I would have chosen, but it was clean, in good shape and will dress himself in spiderman.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Chicagomama,
Since I’m one of the parents praising our “progressive” schools, I’ll step up and respond.
The diversity in our schools isn’t about conforming to a hippy-crunchy-granola “quirkiness” standard — although certainly there are plenty of crunchy-granola parents in our first elementary school. It’s about the fact that there are half a dozen different distinct “communities” that make up our school population, and none of the children from those groups has the power or the desire — in the early grades — to divide themselves by food or clothing.
As I wrote in my comment to my last post: by third grade or middle school at the latest, all bets are off. But when first starting out? None of the kids in kindergarten in our school were paying any attention to food or clothing. To call that disinterest a standard to which people must “conform” seems to strain the definition of the term.
There are TONS of children in this district whose mothers spend countless hours on their own and their children’s appearance, because those mothers are good Southern ladies and wouldn’t send their kids to school without hair ribbons and fancy clothes. There are plenty of good Republicans, too, although I’ll admit it’s maybe only 40% in our immediate vicinity. But regardless of political affiliation, Christians are in the vast majority, and Bible-belt fundamentalism is a powerful presence, and if the atheists (of whom there are also many) are pitying us Christians to their children at home, I’m not hearing about it.
At playdates, at birthday parties, on the playground, there is a level of diversity that is not about conforming to one standard of quirkiness. Not at this age. The neatly dressed brand-name-wearing children of white Evangelical Republicans play with the thrift-store generic-Tshirt dressed children of Latino immigrants and they all eat their different foods while chatting at the lunch table and those are just not the issues on which they police their group boundaries.
Few things scare me more than the possibility that I might be sending my child off to a school where she would feel lonely or incapable of understanding the social rules. I was shocked to discover two years ago, when my kids started kindergarten, that the issues that mattered most to me — mostly having to do with clothing, I was hyper-vigilant about buying the “popular” clothes and making sure they were stain-free — didn’t matter to my kids or their peers.
I think it would be great if it turns out that M attends a school like that.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I have 4 kids, the older 2 are in college, 1 in high school and the baby (adopted from China) just started kindergarten. I have always done my best to make sure my kids didn’t stand out; i.e. clean, hair brushed, good clothes, homework done on time, forms signed, field trips paid for, etc etc. My oldest son was teased mercilessly by his classmates in the 4th and 5th grade. He was always kind of a “book-wormy” kid and had glasses, didn’t play sports and just didn’t fit in with his peers. He came home many, many days crying about how badly he had been teased. They called him gay, queer, nerd, all the standards. I spoke with his 4th grade teacher about it because the girl who teased him the most was right behind him in the lunch line. The teacher switched the line order around a little bit so he didn’t have to stand next to her, but other than that all I could really do was wrap my arms around him when he came home from school and let him cry it out. It improved by middle school and by high school he was just fine. (In fact, he graduated near the top of his class, got into the college of his choice and is on full academic scholarship……so HA! to all the a@@holes who tormented him and are now working at Best Buy and interestingly enough, most of the tormentors have turned out to not be overachievers). I think, as parents, there is a lot we can do to help our kids fit in or NOT stand out, but the truth is, some kids are just “ripe” for being picked on and there’s not a heck of a lot you can do about it once it happens. The teachers are aware of it and I felt they did they did what they could do to try to make it easier on him, but in the end, he just had to endure it. Putting all that in words just brings on a whole flood of emotions for me. Thankfully, my son has turned into a strong and courageous young man who seems to understand that the bullies really were just very small people and that it had nothing to do with him.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:15 am
Mr. A is very much like my brother. I was fortunate to have him to pave the path for me in our white suburbia growing up Chinese.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:19 am
Wow… I get busy and can’t come visit for a couple of weeks and now there’s so much to catch up! What a fascinating discussion!
And my heart broke for little Mr. A too, particularly because the main cause of his troubles (apart from the “craziness” of his parents) is the fact that he is the child of immigrants. Just that tiny slice of his story reminded me of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior which I taught years ago.
It was great to hear chicagomama’s voice again after so many months, and her interchange with Jody. It makes me really glad that I’m not sending my son into a school where he might have to face those problems. Well, now I have to go read the most recent posts!