I met a mom at the park the other day. Apparently her kid is a genius.
Not just any kind of genius but, THE kid genius.
I mean, freaking MIT should be calling him any day.
"He is so smart. He can count to 100, I swear!"
She says this to me as her genius son is eating sand from the sand box.
Granted my son is also eating sand but, he's only 16 months.
Genius status obviously hasn't been reached yet.
Though if eating sand is the measuring stick we use than my kid better get into freaking Harvard.
"He also has been singing his ABC's since he was 1!"
This kid should be on Ellen.
These conversations usually happen organically when people ask me why my six year old isn't in school. You see, we homeschool. I know what you're thinking, it's because my kid is a genius and the school system is too behind for her right?
Just kidding.
But really, our list of reasons we homeschool is long and more complex than that but, for some reason people seem to get either really excited when they find out we homeschool or really uncomfortable. It's the uncomfortable ones I like to goad.
"yeah, Gracie is actually in 4th grade but, we keep her home so she doesn't get teased. She's actually a math genius."
Come one moms, get over yourselves! Why do we need to not only compare ourselves to each other but, now we have to throw our kids into the mix! Listen Lisa, I'm glad that Larry Learner over here is a genius and has been tying his own shoes since 9 months old. My kid is old enough to pee in the toilet but she can't quite figure out that the right shoe goes on the right foot and the left shoe goes on the left foot.
Standford isn't going to be calling us for early admission.
The point I'm trying to make is why can't we just let kids be kids! It makes me actually
sad that we put so much pressure on our kids to be better than their friends.
My six year old actually knows everything.
Apparently when you turn 6 your brain opens and all the information in the world
fills your soul and you are able to be a know-it-all.
Then, when you turn into an adult, you lose it.
Go figure.
I have to actually remind her every single day that she DOESN'T know everything and that is a GOOD thing! I don't ever want to get to a point in my life where I don't want to learn anymore and I certainly don't want my daughter to hate learning because I force fed her book work non-stop in her elementary years. Let them play. Let them learn through life.
I'm all about bookwork, don't get me wrong.
We do our worksheets but, we also learn in different ways AND we don't need to tell everybody about it.
Now, this could be my copout way to put my mom guilt at rest because, lets be real, sometimes I forget that I'm suppose to teach my four year old her letters and crap like that.
Shouldn't she just know that?
Middle child syndrome.
But really, I don't care if my 4 year old can count to 100. I actually don't. I don't care if my 6 year old can read chapter books back to from and do 3 digit multiplication.
I also don't care if yours can.
I get that we are proud of our kids and we want others to know it.
I GET IT!
I get so excited when Gracie spells a word correctly instead of phonetically that I want to instagram the shiz out of it. But I think that is the equivalent of posting what I'm eating for dinner
and ain't nobody got time fo dat.
So before you internally roll your eyes when I wide eyed new mom stares at you and asks "Shouldn't my baby be reading Shakespeare right now?!?" Just pat her on the back and remind her that yesterday your 4 year old at a glue stick.
It's all relative.
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