"Girls are too good"

Today I watched in awe at the power of your keen ear.  While jamming to your playlist, you correctly identified its origin, from your favorite movie, Wolfwalkers.  I equivocated, uncertain, not quite in agreement, and consulted Spotify.  The name didn't make any sense.  "This is Intolerable" by Bruno Calais.  You knew it immediately, after the first few foreboding measures. 

It had a compelling piano melody, so compelling that it drew your energy away from the dulling work of penciling in your RRJ. 

Before I knew what was happening, you were seated at the piano, your hands immediately going to the notes you were hearing, but in harmony.  Without even having to search for it, you knew right where to place your hands to produce those complementary notes. 

Awesome listening. Powerful attunement.  Right on task, even if you weren't doing your school work, you were learning the only way that learning can be sustained, through following your bliss. 

Later, we were talking about why you didn't like doing homework.  (Duh, mom, because it's so boring).  Anyway, to introduce some levity, I told you about my students and pulled a face to illustrate how they're always on the verge of dozing off in my classes.  I had attempted to enlist your assistance to find a way to make homework - to make learning - fun, as it should be. As a teacher, this is definitely a skill I want to develop. And you are my most precious student. 

You proposed having a reward for every homework assignment you finish: a piece of toast with jam & butter, a piece of candy, some time to play with your friends, some time to watch your shows - the things you most value.  But, I had to ask, does making a reward for yourself make the doing of the homework more fun. 

"Yeah, sorta," you replied. "It helps motivate me."

So I re-iterated the invitation - let's see if we could make annotating the text of your Studies Weekly fun! Annotating, I explained, is a skill I teach my college students.  You rolled your eyes when you heard this.  I told you, "it's very simple, but very few people know how to do it right."  I was eager to do it with you, to learn some California history. Having grown up in Texas, I had learned close to nothing about California history.  

When I pulled the face, you got in on the act, describing how my students would actually be logged on to Zoom while playing a video game and listening to the news.  So, in other words, completely distracted. "How would I know?" I asked. "They're all just black boxes. Besides," I added, "the students I was talking about were in my in-person class" -  the first I'd had in two years. 

"Still," you elaborated on how you could just see them completely zoned out on her game. And then you corrected yourself. "Actually," you said, "I can't really see a girl doing that, only boys."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, girls are too good."

And you are correct, we are.  

So after a levity break, and a reminder of our own self-worth, we put our noses to the newspaper. We read about Rancho Petaluma and the Californios. We read about modern-day uses for gold. Did you know it's used to treat rheumatoid arthritis?  Google knows.  We asked because we were curious. And then you told me, as we sat gorging on the steady stream of easily accessible information, "Google is a know-it-all."

Yes, yes she is. Aren't we having fun already!

The annotation had its own series of distractions and diversions. It took us nearly an hour to read and annotate three articles, but we visited so many topics along the way, including making a mental note to plan a trip to see some of these historical places, to take pride in what we know about the places we are from, however far removed. I watched as you grinned greedily at the thought of the riches in your gold teeth and computers. We cuddled and talked about pre-pubescent changes underway. You sniffed my ear and told me it smelled bad.  When I objected to this, you invited me to smell your ear. "It smells like strawberries," you said after sticking your pinky finger in your ear and giving it a sniff.  We talked about all the annotations we were making and how it gets done at school and how you don't really remember since it's been so long since you were in class for that lesson, your thrice weekly pull-out Word Wizards classes always requiring you to miss, thereby saddling with homework double-time - not just the most basic, intellect-dulling worksheet imaginable, but also the in-class work that you missed the chance to do with your class, where you might benefit from the full social dimension of learning. 

I find myself suspicious of all these "interventions"  and how much they actually support your learning, which is to say, I don't support them at all. Uncharitably, I wonder if your third grade teacher simply finds you a handful and has figured out a way to send you away at the most convenient times to help the other students focus.  All children are exceptional in their parents' eyes.  Mine, doubly so to me. 

Recently, your best friend's mother asked me if I'd ever heard of twice exceptional children, suggested I might have been one.  I think she might have obliquely been suggesting that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. 

On Friday, I received an email from your Word Wizards teacher, deeply offended by its town.  I reached out to two people for support. One of them urged me to have the school perform an IEP assessment, suspicious of signs that suggest ADHD.  The other reminded me what a good job I'm doing as your mother.  Both were valuable perspectives, upon which I continue to ruminate? What does it mean to be a good mother?  Among my highest priorities is to teach you to love yourself completely.  To love yourself means to know yourself and that journey will become more and more your own.  How much trust do I put in modern medicine to name a "malady" that is more likely just societal malaise?  How much can I shift the society even as it shapes our growth?  So much in our world is broken, but not so broken to be beyond repair. 

I had to learn to navigate my own way, and it's been a long row to hoe, but am I better now for all the struggle I endured to avoid a diagnosis, to spend years self-medicating, and beating myself up for never quite living up to my potential?  Your mileage may vary.

You are a Ridgway, your mother's daughter, a force of nature, an artist, and a doer.  

Perhaps it's time to learn how good we really are.