I talk a good game a lot of the time. So much so that I start believing it. And then.....reality.
I tell myself that I really don't care what my kids end up doing with their lives in terms of careers so long as they work hard, do their best and get as much education within their chosen profession as they possibly can, whether it is as a nurse or a judge or a hairstylist or a carpenter.
And I do believe this, but it is easy for me to be loosey-goosey in what I expect and hope for their careers because I can't really wrap my head around it.
But then I talk to parents whose kids are different from mine....maybe not as fast of a learner as N is, not as good of a reader. And I freeze in my tracks because I realize that I expect my kids to be advanced, to be in the upper echelon of students.
What worries me is how I will react if they aren't.
I don't know what G and M will be like as students within the setting of full-time school. I don't know yet how they learn. How quickly they will pick things up. How self-motivated they will be when it comes to classwork and homework. How receptive they will be to me helping them at home.
When I look myself and D, I think we're pretty darn smart....compared to the masses, anyway. We read and stay on top of current events and have thoughtful insights (I didn't say correct....just thoughtful). And I expect that the kids will fall in line with this.
But what if they don't?
I hate it when I remember that I'm an intelligence snob.
I tell myself that I really don't care what my kids end up doing with their lives in terms of careers so long as they work hard, do their best and get as much education within their chosen profession as they possibly can, whether it is as a nurse or a judge or a hairstylist or a carpenter.
And I do believe this, but it is easy for me to be loosey-goosey in what I expect and hope for their careers because I can't really wrap my head around it.
But then I talk to parents whose kids are different from mine....maybe not as fast of a learner as N is, not as good of a reader. And I freeze in my tracks because I realize that I expect my kids to be advanced, to be in the upper echelon of students.
What worries me is how I will react if they aren't.
I don't know what G and M will be like as students within the setting of full-time school. I don't know yet how they learn. How quickly they will pick things up. How self-motivated they will be when it comes to classwork and homework. How receptive they will be to me helping them at home.
When I look myself and D, I think we're pretty darn smart....compared to the masses, anyway. We read and stay on top of current events and have thoughtful insights (I didn't say correct....just thoughtful). And I expect that the kids will fall in line with this.
But what if they don't?
I hate it when I remember that I'm an intelligence snob.
1 comment:
When I was in a "baby and mommy" class with my firstborn, we did a group exercise where we each got to choose something like five words from a list of about a hundred words we'd love our babies to be if we got to choose. The list had words like kind, beautiful, intelligent, athletic, artistic. I was the ONLY ONE IN THE ENTIRE CLASS (a dozen mothers) who chose intelligent.
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