How did they get so cool…
At 15 I was working at the coffeehouse during school and 3-5 jobs during the summer, just trying hard to avoid school, like get out of there as soon as possible, and definitely avoid home. It wasn’t that is was awful at home, there was just a lot of expectation without a lot of perceived support. I grew up is a tiny town with very little to do outside of school activities and church. My family never attended church so school was it. I didn’t have a tight friend group. I had friends and tried to hang out with people but I wasn’t very good at it. Still really am not.
At 13, I was in 8th grade figuring out how to gain access to my parent who wasn’t home. Then how to make time to do the things I was supposed to do, like do advanced math as a self directed course while feeling like I was stupid. I didn’t get into the advanced classes with teachers like some of my other peers who did. Come to find out 30 years later, I did get in. One of my parents refused to sign the paperwork because he “didn’t want kids who thought they were smarter than everyone else” (or at least that what I was told). Except I was and it did the opposite in stunting my drive. It made me feel like I wasn’t smart enough to even try sometimes. Or at least not at that time.
At 15, my highly anxious, slightly depressed, openly gay, brilliant son has figured out a way to crush high school on his terms. He doesn’t like sports or much that is competitive. He swims on a rec team because “while I hate it it is the only thing that helps my depression”. He tends to identify 1 or 2 people he really hangs out with, kind of like me. He volunteers with me at the school coffee cart several mornings a week at 6:45 am then goes to school for his regular 6 classes. He then signed up for another class after school in culinary arts 4 days a week for 2 hours. 2 days a week, he goes to work from 4-8 pm at his summer job he didn’t want to quit. He says this all helps. He has all his school work done, he still makes time for video games, and he is starting to spend time with friends.
At 13, my highly driven, sports oriented, hard on herself, brilliant daughter is incredible. She is strong, social, and a leader even through struggles with anxiety. She is on a swim team, a dance team, and plays violin. She is a downhill ski racer and loves to free ski, going big and fast. She has started babysitting to earn money and volunteering at the coffee cart with her brother and I because “it’s fun”. Today she started a Korean Language course so she can explore being a foreign exchange student in high school and she can more fully enjoy her K-dramas. She also makes time to hang out with friends, watch tv and play cribbage with her dad.
So much, so directed, so like me but different.
Some of this is opportunity, we live in a large city with a lot of various things to do. But how much of this is role modeled? I am busy, I work full time, I manage the house, I get the kids, mostly, where they need to be every day, and I volunteer at the school coffee cart 2-4 mornings a week and get their supplies and manage the other volunteers. This feels doable to me, this is comfortable. But am I showing them balance? I hope so. Does what I am doing, push them to do more or is it comfortable for them to be busy, to keep their brains occupied? I hope they are doing what they are because they want to and not because they think they have to because I do.
