We can’t all be perfect, but we can all aspire to be the best. Even if being the best means simply having the best-looking nose on the planet. A lesson in labeling and childhood aspiration, by mom-in-progress Kagiso Msimango
Thing 1 is in the final year of Nursery, which I think is called grade R in more traditional schools, and she can’t read. This is deliberate.
At her school they only learn how to read in grade 2. I
believe that they will only start getting homework in grade 4, because what kind of homework are you going to give kids who learn from play?
They don’t wear uniform, and, I never, ever receive a progress report. For all I know they may very well spend their days making Nike’s and assembling iPhones.
I knew all this going in. In fact this is the only school I applied to. Thing 1 started crèche when she was two-and-a-half, and at the end of the term I received a 14-page progress report.
What, pray tell, can you possibly assess a toddler on, that takes up 14 pages? The only thing I am concerned about was that she is happy, has fun and plays well with the other kids. I don’t care about her proficiency on the abacus.
This is really all a response to my own childhood. I apparently learned how to walk at 8 months. I know, how creepy is that? I could read at age 3 and I matriculated when I was barely 15.
The attention and adulation I received for my academic feats and the Usain-like rate at which I bolted through my developmental milestones had me reduced to a brain. I don’t want that for my children.
I don’t want them represented by a single label, like “the smart one”, in my case. Alas, they do say that what you resist will persist.
Thing 1 is an exceptionally good-looking child. She knows this, because so many people tell her so. I try to balance it out the by complementing her on other qualities, but the seed has already been sown.
I have a long-standing crush on Johnny Depp’s nose. Once when she was 4, Thing 1 heard me say that Johnny had the most beautiful nose on the planet. This did not sit well with my pretty child.
She tried to emotionally blackmail me into saying that her nose is prettier than Johnny Depp’s, but I stuck to my guns.
Last week after reading Snow White to her, the one where the vain woman wants the child dead so she can be the fairest of them all, Thing 1 asked; “Mommy, how old is Johnny Depp?”
“I don’t know, probably in his late forties”, I replied. She can only count up to thirty, remember she goes to that school, anything more than that is ancient to her. She smiled, “So, he’s going to die soon.”
Thing 1 wants to be “the nose”.
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