To K or Not to K?

I know what I should do, I think. I should either stop reading message boards, or I should at least stop being surprised or baffled.

Still, there's a reason that I used to say that my autobiography should be titled, "Deep and Profound Alienation."

(As an aside, there's reasons that I stopped saying that, as well. Some people thought I was kidding; I'm not. Some people knew that I wasn't kidding, and decided that I was deeply depressed and feeling unloved; I'm not.)

Human interaction is tough.

I had my oldest children in the mid 1980s. That was the first era, at least, in my memory, in which parents started obsessing about preschools. I'd read newspapers and magazines, and be totally amazed that people were signing their kids up for "the right schools" in utero. Sometimes, they'd have to wait until the baby was actually born, and they'd worry that some child born two hours earlier would get the last spot at a choice school. They'd fork over money equivalent to college tuition for a toddler's classes. There were huge waiting lists, tutors to help your kid master the interview, tutors to help parents master the interview... it was madness, in my opinion.

Of course, people didn't want my opinion. I was a young and inexperienced parent, in a backwater rural area of a state that's often a punch line. I'd be taking walks in the park, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and taking naps, and even people who loved me occasionally worried that I was doing everything all wrong and dooming my children.

Of course, cocaine use was also rampant in the 80s, and I figured that I'd take my word over a strung out New Yorker's any day.

Even people who knew and liked me personally occasionally said things like, "It'll be OK because you're an involved parent, and you provide opportunities for intellectual stimulation." I called those "opportunities" by other names, like "playing with toys," but whatever. Semantics.

I thought that I did a good job of trusting myself and not getting my feathers ruffled, and I still think so. I find, though, that even decades later, there are things that still annoy me.

I hate it - any stay at home parent hates it - when someone says, "You don't work," or, "You've never had a job." I had a job. I have a job; actually, more than one. My main job, my career, the one I felt was most important and into which I poured the most time and attention, was one for which I got no pay and no recognition. People who talked to me earnestly and frequently about a woman's right to chart her own course and be whatever she wanted to be did not value my choices. That was irritating. OK, infuriating.

So, too, was assuming that my choices were not actual choices, but inertia or ignorance - that I was where I was, doing what I was doing, because I felt that I had no other options. Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how hard it was, in the age of Power Suits, to swim upstream, against the prevailing theories and practices? It was HARD. I did it because I had chosen to. It would have been so much easier, and more socially acceptable, to do almost anything else.

My kids didn't attend preschool because I didn't think that they needed it. Every now and then, we'd be invited to some Mommy and Me group or other; I'd attend, because I didn't want to turn down a sincere invitation, but I don't think that I ever went more than once. I don't do groups well. We had friends, we had church; my kids were fine and I was fine.

I do NOT think that everyone's choices should be the same as mine. I do NOT think that my kids are the same as everyone else's. I do NOT think that parents who choose a preschool program are bad parents, or that they're shirking their responsibilities, or that they don't love their kids. I think that one size will never fit all. I thought, silly me, that other people thought the same thing, and that they'd be just as uninvested in our choices as I was in theirs. I was wrong.

"But early learning is key! Children learn best before they're three! They need every advantage if you want them to get into a good college! Even if they don't need the academics, they need the socialization!" people would say. "Your kids will be behind when they get to kindergarten!"

The thing is, my kids were learning. We never, ever did flashcards or tutors or workbooks, because that's not how small children learn best. They learn best by playing and experiencing.

(I thought about linking to studies that say as much, but you know what? If you agree, you'll agree without them. If you don't agree, you'll disagree even with them. If you want to see if such studies exist, that's what Google is for.)

Think about it. Did you ever give your child formal lessons to teach them who Mama and Dada were? Did they need time at a desk to learn what a doggy, a cookie, a ball were? No; they learned it in context from everyday activities, and repetition. If you're even halfway on the ball, kids learn other stuff the same way. "What a cute black doggy!" and, "I love those blue flowers" and the like will eventually teach colors. I once heard a teacher say that her students came to school not knowing colors or shapes; how is that even possible? How do you prevent a child from learning those things? We could have actively tried to thwart our kids, and they would have picked up their full name, address and the like as well.

We never gave penmanship lessons to our little ones, but they all picked up writing by watching us. My oldest printed her name for the first time at age 2 1/2. She was coloring in a coloring book, and she labeled the page the same way she'd seen me do it over and over, with her name. She had an upper case L, followed by a circle with a tail (a lower case a), an arch (a lower case n) and another circle with a tail (a). I enthused all over her. "You wrote your own name! You did such a good job!"

She gave me a pitying look. "That's not good, Mama. That's a Q," she said, stabbing her finger at her "a." (And, technically, she was right.)

"You did a very good job! It says 'Lana,' " I said. She would have none of my enthusiasm. She was completely unimpressed with her amateurish efforts.

We were having dinner in a restaurant the first time my toddler son wrote his name. One of his sisters said something about how little he was, saying, as an example, that he couldn't even write his own name. "Yes, I can!" he insisted.

"Have you ever?"

"No. But I can."

"You can not!"

"Yes, I can!"

"Mom! Tell him he can't."

"Give me that," he insisted, pointing at the keno tickets and crayons on the casino restaurant table.

"OK. Show me!" his sister said, handing him a crayon and paper. He carefully and neatly printed "Alex."

"When did he learn to do that? Did you show him that?" His sisters were astonished.

"I didn't," I told them. He'd simply seen me write it often enough that he could recognize and mimic it.

As far as "socialization," a concept which  I find to be fairly ridiculous, and usually synonymous with "institutionalized behavior," my kids had plenty of positive opportunities to be in a group. At church, for example, they were in their own classes from the age of 18 months. Even in nursery, ages 18 months to 3 years, the kids have not only play time but story time, music time and arts and crafts. By three, they're expected to sit quietly in their chairs and raise their hands during 45 minute lessons and 45 minute "sharing time" that includes singing and games. My kids also had cousins and friends with whom they could practice the finer points of sharing and taking turns.

They got to play in the dirt and make messes. We explored bugs, trees and plants. We went on walks and fed ducks at the pond. They had toys and TV like Sesame Street. (As an aside, the creators of Sesame Street hoped that it would deliver "a free, high quality preschool experience" to low income kids, allowing them to start school equal to their more privileged peers.) We hung an alphabet wallpaper border in their bedrooms. They had books, books and more books, writing utensils, paper, art supplies and parents who ate meals with them and modeled table manners. (Almost every time we were in a restaurant, someone would come by and compliment my toddlers' behavior.)

When they started kindergarten, we told them (all 4, born over a 12 year period) that the readiness screening was a "meet your teacher" event. When she (they were always women, the kindergarten teachers) asked them to perform a task, they viewed it as either games or simple conversation. The teachers would then always tell us how "advanced" our kids were.

My kids are smart - I'm not discounting that - but intelligence is only potential. You can't guarantee an outcome based on possibility.

I'm thinking of all of this because I again responded to a mom's question on a message board. Her son was having trouble with all day kindergarten. After lunch, he would be surly, argumentative and combative, hitting and biting. The counselor suggested that they cut him back to a half day, and things improved dramatically. There's never been any problem in the mornings, and now that he leaves before he's worn out, everybody's happier.

His mom was thinking of taking him out of kindergarten, though, based in part on the teacher's statement that he'd have to repeat kindergarten next year. "Why send him if he'll just have to do it again?" she wondered. She also listed other reasons that she thought it might be a good idea to take him out, including the fact that  he's one of the younger kids in class, and she has to wake her baby in order to pick up her son at school.

I wrote back and said that if their lives would run smoother and be happier with him at home, she should take him out and bring him home. Then I read the other comments. At the time, I was comment 17 out of 17, and every other one said, "Leave him in!" I checked back later, and it was up to 27 responses, 24 of them saying, "Leave him in."

I didn't expect that. Not every child is ready for the same things at the same time, and that's OK. Considering the needs of other family members is OK. Being outside the curve of "normal" is OK. Really, folks. It's OK if we aren't all exactly the same.

Most responders gave some variation of, "He needs the structure." I understand that thinking, but I don't agree with it. I think that we've become so terrified of doing anything "wrong," or of being unqualified, that we collectively feel the need to turn even our young children over to "experts" and then breathe a sigh of relief that we're doing "the right thing."

Some people, though, were outright nasty. Take this comment - "I suggest you take some parenting classes ASAP. Problems with children this young most often reflect problems with the parenting and issues between the parents."

WHAT?

The kid is FIVE YEARS OLD. Calm down! Kids this age are impulsive and tire easily. Yes, they get tired. This same responder also said, "You've been blaming his behavior on him being 'tired,' but I knew that wasn't the issue the first time you said it." I'm so glad that your crystal ball works, but we mortals generally require getting to know someone before we can "know" anything about them. Sometimes we even take the drastic step of actually meeting people in person before we "know" them.

I'm sorry, I'm getting snarky, and I try not to do that. I assume that everyone is well intentioned and at least reasonably well informed (I know, right?), and I try to treat them that way. I try not to generalize or jump to conclusions. But GEEZ!

I've got to assume that people who suggest everything from taking the kid to a psychologist to changing his diet to changing his bedtime are honestly trying to help. I may not agree with them, but, again, that's OK. There is no law of God or man that compels us to agree before we can be good people and good parents. Plus, what worked for one of my kids didn't necessarily work for their siblings, and these are kids with the same genetic makeup, being raised in the same environment. There is no way at all that every person on the planet needs the exact same things, or will respond to circumstances in the exact same way.

That's Issue 1: let individuals be individuals! That may even mean that they (gasp!) make different choices than you do. That doesn't mean that they're wrong or bad or incapable or immoral or ignorant.

Issue 2: It's kindergarten! It's not Harvard Law! Take a deep breath, OK? Kids are still eating paste and picking their noses! It's not required by law for a reason.

When I was in kindergarten, it was only available half days, and there was mandatory nap time. There was not only no homework, there was little book work. I know, I know, that was in the Dark Ages, and we're more enlightened now, and K is more academic, and we have to keep up with other nations, yada yada yada. Tell me: has educational achievement gone up or down in the years since the 1970s, when I lay awake on my nap mat waiting for the teacher to turn the lights back on? If these changes had brought about incredible achievement that had sent our students soaring, I'd say, "OK, I'm on board." They haven't. Plus, I heard the same things when my older kids were young, and again when their younger siblings started school. (There's a 12 year gap between my oldest and my youngest.) We heard frequently that "that may have worked in the past, but it won't work now." Children don't develop any differently than they did in the past, do they?

And let me tell you about tired kids. The only time any of my kids were ever completely beastly was when they were tired. When my youngest child was 4, one of the children's ministry leaders brought her to me and said, "She needs to sit with you. She bit her teacher." Sigh. So she sat with me in the women's meeting, and fell asleep in less than a minute. When she woke up, she was cheery and sunshiny. One of my kids gave up naps at one, and one needed them until six. Again, not everyone's the same.

At this point, though, when I have three adult children and a high school student, I get to stand on my laurels a little. My kids were school ready. They were college ready. A huge part of that is their own doing, but a small part is mine. I gave them opportunities that worked for them. Two have college degrees and one is attending a university.

Without a "quality preschool program." While staying home with mommy. LIGHTEN UP, everybody. It's possible to do a good job with your kids at home. even if you take your kid out of kindergarten.

It's also possible to do a good job, be a good parent, be involved and loving while enrolling your kids in a school starting at age one.

So, if this mom wants to take her son out of kindergarten, THAT'S OK, even if OTHER moms leave their kids in.

BREATHE!

Off to School We Go

My third child is about to leave home to attend a university several hundred miles away. Naturally, we're simultaneously thrilled and anticipating missing him.

We've done this twice before, as his sisters went away to school, so we know the drill. It's not new. Still, there are differences.

The biggest difference is that he's been homeschooled since the sixth grade. "Are you more excited about Alex than you were with Lana and me?" my middle daughter asked. No, not more excited; I do feel a bit more proud of myself, though, because his education has more to do with me. All I provided for his sisters was their genes.

OK, that's not true; I'm exaggerating. We provided good genes, a home filled with books, educational trips, parents who loved learning, a place and time for homework, perspective, incentive ("If your grades slip, you'll have to quit your job. School comes first."), and an environment that helped them succeed. Still, most of the responsibility rested on them, then on the school. We could help, but you know those studies that say that kids spend an average of ten minutes a day with their families? We had those days.

When they were young, they had dance classes, gymnastics classes, drawing classes, Scouts and church activities on various week nights. Thank goodness, they were not in all those activities at once, but it still meant 2 or 3 weeknights, on average, spent somewhere besides home. When they were in high school, especially their last two years, their schedules looked like this: 6:45 a.m. - early morning religion classes; 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. - school; 2:30 - 5:00 p.m. - band practice; 6 to 10 p.m. - job; 10:30 p.m. - bedtime. Add to that band performances at games and competitions, other extracurricular activities, time spent with friends and church youth group, and on many, many days, we'd see them just long enough to say, "Get up," and, "Go to bed." If there were large educational deficiencies, we could do little to remedy them except cut back on their work hours or extracurricular activities - and everyone knows that the standard advice on getting into the college of your choice strongly advises extracurricular activities, so cutting those too drastically would make for both unhappy teens and diminished educational opportunities. (Ironic, isn't it? You can't cut back in order to focus on education, because your educational opportunities will suffer.)

(Both, by the way, were honor students, both took AP courses. Both got into their first choice college.)

We've gotten used to having my son, and our youngest daughter, with us all the time. They, too, have had classes (fencing, dance, karate), Scouts, church activities and more. We've spent an average of one day a week, and sometimes two, at homeschool co-ops, where they're in classes taught by someone besides us for up to three hours. Even with all of that, we still see them for hours every day. This last year has been a big adjustment, since my son's been working an average of 30 hours a week.

And, of course, we're legally (and otherwise) responsible for making sure he has a chance to learn everything he needs to know. I don't have to teach it to him personally, but I have to make sure that he has a chance to learn it. That's a change from when my older kids just signed up for whatever their school offered.

I never worried too much about whether he'd be able to go to college after being homeschooled. (My husband worried a bit, but that's because it's what he does. I Worry, Therefore I Am.) There are so many avenues available. Many schools accept a homeschool diploma the same way they do a public or private school diploma. Dual enrollment, or enrolling at the community college during high school (ours accepts students 16 and older), the GED, placement exams, Credit By Exam/Advanced Placement exams and more are available for schools that don't accept a homeschool diploma.

There are so many schools, and so many ways to go to school; there are few wrong ways to become educated. One of the very few ways that I consider wrong is the need to go into massive amounts of debt so that you'll have a particular school name on your diploma. Sometimes debt is unavoidable - my second daughter needed student loans - but I think it's a bad idea in general to take on loans while in your teens or 20s that you won't have paid off until your 50s.

I loved recently reading a piece of common sense advice from a father to his daughter. She was a sweet, earnest girl wanting very much to do the right thing, and she asked her father how she'd know which college God wanted her to attend. His down to Earth response? "God doesn't want you to be an idiot, so go somewhere you'll learn." Bingo. That nails it.

Plus, my son had an A list (only two schools, but I browbeat him into adding a third), a B list and a C list of schools to apply to. His fallback, "if all else fails" plan was to stay home and go to the local community college and then transfer to the local university; that's the A list plan for many kids. It's a good one. Still, I wanted my son to have the experience he wanted. He wanted to go away to school. Plus, both of his sisters went to their A list schools.

Other people, it seemed, worried about my son's choices, and chances, a lot. Many of them would express general worries about homeschooling, then temper their expressed worries by saying something like, "Oh, I'm not worried about YOU and YOUR kid, just OTHER homeschooled kids," as if that wasn't irritating. (Obviously) I'm only responsible for my kid. The world in general doesn't answer to me.

Even my son, who asked us to do this for four years before everything aligned and it worked for our family, occasionally argued with my choices.

In his 5th grade public school classes, they'd had the kids in the advanced group doing "beginning algebra." When we started sixth grade, he naturally wanted to skip any review and go full steam ahead. I think that a lot of current assembly line, run-it-past-the-kids-pass-an-exam-on-it-and-move-on instruction doesn't let the instruction sink into their long term memory. Sometimes I'll use a common term like "adverb" around kids in honors classes (or adults who passed them), and they'll be baffled and unsure of what it means. I've watched too many teens in honors programs - mine included - insist that they can't calculate how much, say, a 20% discount is on an item. My 16 year old daughter, who was in honors trigonometry at the time, insisted through tears that she couldn't do simple multiplication without a calculator. I was not going to teach with those methods.

When he couldn't tell me what simple terms like numerator, denominator or divisor meant, I told my son that we were going back to the basics until they were rock solid. He was furious, and sure that he'd be tragically behind other kids his age. (This was also his dad's biggest worry. Math is not my strong suit, and I'm upfront about this. He occasionally worried that I was not up to teaching it.) I did not want to hear about what tests he'd passed; I wanted to know what he could do. An education only works if it's functional, accessible knowledge. Plus, terms like "beginning algebra" are fairly meaningless. The first time a small child is presented with, "2 + _ = 4," that's algebra. It's solving for the unknown using a given formula.

One of the reasons we chose homeschooling was the ability to tailor it to our kids as individuals. The more "standardized" instruction becomes, the less effective it is, in my opinion.

I have four children. Two of them are relentless perfectionists, much harder on themselves than necessary (or than anyone else will ever be). Two will always take the path of least resistance, and have to be kept strictly accountable for making any progress at all. Naturally, I have to handle these kids differently.

In general, I'm pretty laid back as an instructor. When I used to teach theater classes, we'd play some sort of game, or do something that the kids loved but that they assumed was just goofing off, and then I'd tell them the skill they'd just mastered. My youngest child is all about fun, and my son's way too hard on himself, so I deliberately kept things casual.

Sometimes, my son would accuse me of being too casual. I usually just "grade" their stuff as, "OK," or, "Do it over," so there's not a lot of letter grades. For his official transcript, the one that I anticipated every college needing, I had to do letter grades (and justify them). I coach the local homeschool speech and debate team; we compete against teams from public and private schools. He happened to look over my shoulder during his junior year when I entered an A for speech and debate. He was aghast. "I didn't trophy once! I don't deserve an A!" Competitions are on average every month during the school year, and although he made finals all but twice, and came in 4th several times, he had not trophied (3rd place and up). He would have grudgingly given himself a C, "or maybe a B-."

I dragged out my official coaching manual, given to me by the national organization. It gives a grading scale based on the points kids earn at competition. He was far, far above the amount of points required for an A. He was deeply surprised. "I do not ever hand you an A because I'm your mommy," I told him.

It is worth noting that during his senior year, he brought home 5 trophies and qualified for the national tournament in two events. You can only represent your district at Nationals in one event (which he did).

When he signed up for the ACT exam, the exam preferred by his A list schools, I deliberately downplayed it. "It's no big deal. Plus, you can take it as many times as you want, and they throw out all but the highest score." We didn't get any practice books, but he did do the official ACT online practice, just because taking standardized tests is a skill unto itself, and I wanted the format to be familiar. Had he been his sister, there would have been lectures about how important it was, and how she needed to do her best, but he's a different person. I was very, very casual about it. The last thing he needed was to tie himself in knots.

His math was his lowest score, but - whoops - that was because we sent him in without a calculator. His scores were still right in the target range, and exceeded what he'd need for his B list schools. His lowest score was what his highest ranked B list school wanted as a composite score. But he wanted to take it again, and we totally understood. Armed with a calculator this time, his math score improved by 4 points, now putting him in the ACT's "college ready" range, and in the range for his A list schools. (Take that, naysayers!)

His highest score, science, was in the 30s. No big surprise to us - we know him - but a friend actually said to us, "But I thought that religious people didn't like science." Sigh.

In the fall of his senior year, we hit a small snag. One of his A list university choices required all homeschooled students to have a GED; actually, the state the school was in required it. By then he'd taken the ACT, which, in my opinion, should be enough info for any school, but hey, you jump through whatever hoops you have to.

Again, I downplayed it as no big deal. "It'll be kinda like the ACTs, only less difficult."

Here, though, it got a bit hairier. Our local laws required him, as a minor, to take a GED pre-test before he could take the GED. After the superintendent of schools himself reviewed the scores, he'd let us know if Alex had permission to take the GED. This is because they want to guarantee that minors, who are factored into state and federal numbers, don't show up as drop outs or failures. So of course, the first thing GED candidates have to do is drop out of school. I'm not kidding. If you are enrolled in a public, private, charter or online high school, you have to drop out to take the GED, or even the practice GED.

Not that it affected my homeschooled student, but let's think about that for a second. Let's say that you know you're cutting it close, and may not graduate. You want a diploma, but between work, home and your family situation, it might not happen. Instead of letting you stay in school while you take the GED as a safety net, the law requires you to drop out to even consider it as an option. Really? Does this seem like a good idea to anyone?

When I talked to people, though, many of them defended this policy. "You want kids to stay in school. You don't want them to take the GED. You want them to graduate." My state has one of the worst graduation rates in the country, and my county has one of the worst graduation rates in the state. How could it possibly get any worse? How could we want to make any viable alternative harder? Newspaper accounts like these are our "success" stories: "The Washoe County School District's 2010 graduation rate increased to 63 percent after languishing in the 56 percent range. (Reno Gazette Journal, September 14, 2010)"

That year, 2010, my state ranked 51 in graduation rates, behind every other state and the District of Columbia.

This year, again, there are thousands of kids entering 12th grade who will not graduate even if they pass all of this year's classes. I mean, can anyone give me a reason that they should drop out to even consider the GED? Why shouldn't they have a safety net while they're in school? Would we rather they get an alternative diploma, or none at all?

A reason besides making the numbers look good, I mean. I consider this preoccupation with documentation to the federal and state government, under threat of losing funding, accreditation or jobs, to be equivalent to "cooking the books." But that's a conversation for another day. Back to my kid.

We had one month before the preferred application deadline to set up the pre-test, get it scored, get the official letter letting him take the GED, take the GED, get the scores back, and get them to the university. We took the first available slots for everything. The next pre-test was in 4 days. He had a cold, but we didn't care. We took the spot.

When we told people, some of them started to fret. "What will you do if he doesn't pass?" "They've really tightened up the exam. It's so much harder than it used to be." "After this many years out of school, I don't know if I'd be able to pass." I threatened any Negative Nellies - you will NOT say stuff like that in front of my kid! Good gravy! When my daughter and I went to the bookstore for something, I was glad that my son was at work, so he didn't see the entire shelving unit devoted to GED prep. I didn't want him thinking that it was a big deal.

I had no worries at all. I'm pretty sure that a few people wondered if I really understood the situation.

There are 5 sections of the test. "The math was so easy that I thought at first that they were kidding. I wondered if it was trick questions," he said. He got perfect scores on two sections, science and math. His scores were almost as good in the other three sections. There were hand written notes saying, "Wow!" and "Congratulations!"

Still, the superintendent himself had to review the marks. There is apparently no other entity, or computer program, available to say, "Yup, those scores are passing," or, "Nope, those scores are failing." We waited for the official letter, so we could sign him up for the real test. When we got it, we took the first available testing spot. My son was the youngest person in his testing room, and he got the highest score in the room, hundreds of points over the necessary "passing" mark. The university marked the scores as received two days before the application deadline. Success!

"So, he's done now, right?" his older sister asked. No, I told her. It's only October. We have an entire school year of stuff planned. I have a unit on Shakespearean tragedies planned, a research paper that he needs to write, a debate season to compete in. "I can't believe that you're making him get a diploma AND a diploma!" she said. Yes, I am, I assured her. His homeschool diploma has credits equivalent to (actually, surpassing) the requirements for our county's honors diploma. As far as we're concerned, that's his "real" diploma. The other one is just to satisfy the government, and anyone who worries that his home instruction "didn't keep up" to a public school education.

So, I feel that I can gloat a little more than I could with his sisters. I taught that kid. I coached that competitor. Yeah, it's still all about him, but I get a bit more reflected glory this time. I'm enjoying it; so sue me.

When he got the first acceptance letter from an A list school, we tossed out all the other brochures and applications. Whether the other two schools accepted him or not, the mission was accomplished. He was going where he wanted to go. I was so giddy that I bought him a school hoodie the day he accepted the offer.

 He refused both the GED ceremony to which the county adult education office (repeatedly) invited him, and any of the homeschool ceremonies he could have had. I signed his diploma, stuck a gold seal on it, and dropped it in the Rubbermaid tub where his memorabilia goes. He grudgingly let us take cap and gown photos. He's not big on ceremony.

Now, he's packing silverware, dishes and a crock pot for his apartment. He has a schedule, a roommate, a start date. He's a university student. Just like we did with his sisters, we'll go there for Move-In Day and parent orientation. Then, we'll drive away and leave him on his own.

I think he's ready.

Like every parent, I hope that I'm ready.

The Right Way

Before I got married, I had heard a great deal about how difficult it is to merge two very different people from different backgrounds into a harmonious team. I thought I was pretty ready for it; we discussed money, kids, where and how we'd spend our holidays, all the basic stuff, and I thought we had pretty well reached agreement.

Then, I got married, and I got used to living with another human and making joint decisions. I felt accomplished. I read (fairly obsessively) everything I could find on marriage, divorce, gender differences and the like, and I felt even more accomplished. I got this!

Of course, real life is messy, and you end up encountering things that you never imagined existed.

After we'd been married for years, had kids, bought a home, negotiated all kinds of marriage stuff together, we were having a familiar argument. It was one of those "you or me" situations - you know, "Either you have to do this or I have to." Those things are things like who'll deal with a misbehaving child, take out the trash, cook a meal, make reservations - a job that must be done by one of the two parents in the house. The same principle applies in situations like when you'll have sex, or where you'll go for the holidays - in general, one person will get their way, and one won't, because chances are, you'll never feel exactly the same about it.

(Before you split hairs, and say things like, "You could hire someone to do that for you," or tell me that one partner could seek out someone else to have sex with, let's establish that the parameters of what's acceptable or possible in our marriage have already been set, by us. There's no money for professional cooks, housekeepers, nannies etc., and adultery is bad.)

My husband said, in irritation, "It's not all about you, you know."

I just couldn't believe that he'd chosen an argument that I thought was guaranteed to make him look bad. "Every once in a blue moon, it should be about me. Choose any method of measurement that you want, and any time frame at all - hours in a day, days in a week or in a month, months in a year - and tell me how often we do things your way and how often we do them my way. I have completely given up on ever having anything that resembles 50/50, but every once in a while, in order to keep things from being ridiculously, unhealthily lopsided, it needs to be about me."

He stared at me astonished, as if this thought had never occurred to him. He's a bright guy, my husband, so I was in turn amazed that he apparently had never considered this.

It was obviously still bothering him two or three days later, because he said, apropos of nothing, "I don't know where you get this whole 50/50 thing."

I thought, "Really?" Again, he's a bright guy. How was this new information? I said, slowly and carefully, "Because there's two of us. That means that things should be divided roughly in half. 50% of the time we should do it your way, and 50% of the time we should do it my way." How was it possible that this was not completely obvious?

I don't advocate a complete tit-for-tat exact accounting of every dollar spent ("OK, you spent $10, so I get to spend $10"), or having each partner take out the trash an equal number of times. That sort of system is an unworkable exercise in insanity in my book. It makes complete sense to have one partner do some things more often than the other. I do 99% of the laundry in our house, 100% of the bill paying and gardening, and about 75% of the cooking. My husband does 100% of the auto repair and maintenance, as well as the computer and appliance repair and trouble shooting. (Trust me, you do not want to hand either of those jobs to me, ever.) But in some very important areas, there needs to be something resembling equality, or things head south in a handbasket very quickly. If only one partner can make decisions in the bedroom, for example, that's deeply unhealthy. And don't even get me started on the fury I feel when men refer to taking care of their own children as "babysitting." It's not babysitting when their mother looks after them; it's most assuredly not babysitting when their father looks after them.

This was not the way my husband saw the world. "His" way, he explained, had "nothing to do" with him, personally, or his opinions on any subject. It was just "the right way" to do things.

Holy cow. Major lightbulb over the head moment. This explained SO MUCH! Suddenly, virtually every argument we'd ever had made sense. Good gravy!

Why hadn't he explained to me that this was his world view, I wanted to know. He was puzzled as to why I had asked. It had not occurred to him that there was another way to view things. He hadn't explained for the same reason he'd never told me that socks go on before shoes. Wasn't this something that everyone knew?

I, on the other hand, had never considered this way of thinking. There are so many right ways to do things, and so few wrong ones. Any judgement of "wrong" should be saved for matters of grave importance and moral judgement, or simple physics. Even then, realize that others may not agree. I know people for whom the Biblical injunction "Thou shalt not kill" necessitates catching insects, spiders, mice, scorpions and anything else that might invade your home and releasing them back into the wild somewhere safe. It means eating no meat and wearing no leather. For me, it means "Thou shalt not commit murder;" in other words, never decide that your wishes and aims are more important than someone else's life. There are times, however, in which it is perfectly acceptable to kill for food, clothing, shelter or self defense - and self defense includes having intruders invade my home. I will squash a bug or shoot a burglar and feel fine about it. I think that people in both camps (and everywhere inbetween) need to back off and allow each other clear exercise of their own conscience.

I grew up hearing, "There's more than one way to skin a cat," and, "All roads lead to Rome," being told over and over that there was always more than one way to accomplish any goal. I also heard "Consider the source," meaning that you needed to take people's motivation and/or abilities into consideration when making a judgement on someone's actions or words. If they meant well, or were just dim, you had to cut them some slack. The idea that there was only one "right" way to do anything was not part of my daily reality.

I was now having flashbacks to instance after instance in which my husband and I had been on completely separate pages. When we first got married, for instance, how I ate and/or cooked my food could send him into a tailspin. I remembered him insisting, completely distraught, "You cannot go on eating your sandwiches that way!" What? It was my sandwich, and I liked it. When I would tell him that, he would huff and roll his eyes, or worse, tell me, "That's irrelevant." How could the way I liked my sandwiches be irrelevant to me? I wasn't making his sandwiches that way and asking him to eat them, I was just feeding myself. Does not compute!

(His beef with my sandwiches, in case you wondered, is that I put only butter and cheese on my grilled cheese. "They have no taste!")

Other times had made even less sense to me. For instance, I cannot stand it when he wakes me by grabbing my feet. The foot of our bed, of course, has always faced the door of our room, no matter where we've lived. It makes me insane when he wakes me by grabbing my feet. I wake up in a blind panic; I cannot imagine any legitimate reason for that behavior. I would rather have someone clamp a hand over my mouth than grab my feet (or ankles or calves). When I would tell him that, he'd say, "It doesn't bother me."

"Then I'll feel free to wake you that way. But I hate it, so please don't do it. Walk the few extra steps to the side of the bed."

This was usually met with some comment about my being "controlling." And, the next time he was in too much of a hurry to take three extra steps, he'd grab my feet. Every time, I got angrier, because I'd told him, very clearly, that I hated it. Every time, he'd be more surprised, because he had been clear that it didn't bother him. So, it's controlling to allow for individual likes and dislikes, but not controlling to insist that everyone has to be the same? Really? How can that be?

To me, it seemed obvious - I should treat him the way he wanted to be treated, and he should treat me the way I wanted to be treated. To him, it looked entirely different, but just as obvious; there was one right way to handle this, and we should both conform to that right way.

Other people suddenly made more sense, as well. I remembered going round and round with certain relatives about the planning of my wedding. They'd ask me something about our colors or flowers or some such, and I'd tell them what we'd chosen. I expected, "Oh, that'll be nice," or just "OK," but most of the time, I'd get, "Have you considered X?" When I would say yes, we'd considered it but decided against it, or no, we hadn't considered it because we didn't like X, I thought that the discussion was over. Instead, these individuals would bring the same things up, over and over, and I'd end up saying "no" over and over until tempers frayed. Then I'd get more of those comments about being "controlling" and "selfish."

"So, it's controlling of me to want to plan my own wedding, but it's not controlling of you to want to plan someone else's wedding?" I'd ask, and get no response that made any sense. Usually it was some variation of, "I just want to help," or, "I just want it to be nice." Please note, people: if you want to help, you ask what the bride wants, and then do that thing. You don't try to take over, especially if you say things that translate to, "It will be awful if we do it your way." Someone else's wedding is not about you and what you want.

Again, I was functioning under the assumption that every person needed to make and act on their own decisions, and other people were thinking that things had to be done "the right way," and if I was doing it "wrong," I needed corrected. I'd never really understood why people got frustrated when I didn't change my mind to mirror their opinions. I wasn't losing my mind because they hadn't ditched their opinions in favor of mine.

Mommy Wars - stay at home vs. employed elsewhere, breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding - and various other public battles made more sense now, too. Everyone thought there was only one right way, and it was their duty to enlighten others. Oh, my goodness. No wonder I didn't understand a great deal of common social interactions!

I now understood ridiculous, repetitive, circular conversations, as well. I've always made certain assumptions about conversation in general; I tend to assume that they're an exchange of information. You tell me how you feel, I tell you how I feel, and then we'll understand each other. I never understood, then, why conversations tended to go over the same ground again and again.

I'd say, for instance, "I like A." The other person would say, "I've always liked B better." The way I saw things, we now had enough information to understand each other's behavior and choices, and that was the point. I'd go on my merry way, wondering why the other person would belabor the point. "There are just so many advantages to B," they'd say. "B is just terrific. You really should try B."

"I have. I like A better," I'd say, wondering why we were going over this again. I would get totally baffled when they'd bring it up again and again. It also made no sense to me when they said, and they often did, "Most people prefer B." I could not understand the relevance. It was like injecting, "The capitol of California is Sacramento," into the conversation. It may be true, but I couldn't imagine what it had to do with anything. If they liked B, more power to them. I liked A. That's why there are choices. It turns out, though, that a great many people's idea of "right" is tied to consensus. Whatever the majority thinks becomes "right." Pointing out the majority opinion was their "subtle" way of trying to get me to see the error of my ways, and change my mind.

This is a bad idea on so many levels. One, I do not generally understand subtlety. It passes me right by. Two, the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are, for me, morality and religion based. Therefore, there really is no "wrong" way to serve food, or wear your clothes, or plan a vacation, or choose a paint color. This is why I have no interest in fashion. Don't tell me I'm wearing the "wrong" shoes or pants or colors or whatever. It's hardly possible for it to be "wrong." (My only clothing rules for my kids were that their clothes had to meet health and morality standards.) Also, in 5 or 10 or 20 years, everyone will have changed their minds about it. (Do you see anyone in MC Hammer pants and a mullet walking down the street any more?) Three, let's think about all of the things that have been accepted by a majority in the past (or present). Are all of them scientifically correct or morally acceptable? No. Therefore, pointing out to me what the majority thinks has very little effect.

This could be why these same people viewed me as "stubborn," "self centered," and, yet again, "controlling." (I'll cop to "stubborn." ;D) I still have a hard time understanding how these terms are applicable to someone who figured that everyone should go their own way, and not applicable to someone who was trying to badger others into changing their minds.

Sometimes, someone will accuse me of promoting chaos, or of being too wishy washy to take a stand. I think they're missing the point. While I may have a high tolerance for chaos, as a religious person I'm usually accused of being too rigid, with too many rules. I do, in fact, have very firm ideas about what is morally right and wrong, and I believe that one day, each of us will stand before God to account for our actions. The thing is, I am not God, and neither is anyone else on Earth, so we don't account to each other. Since we don't have to justify our actions to each other in big stuff, stuff of moral significance, how could it possibly be that we need to stand in judgement over each other for petty things, like our food and clothing choices?

There are so many right ways to do anything, and so few wrong ones. Give everybody a break.

After so many years, my husband and I have figured each other out, to a large extent. We will still occasionally look at each other and think, or say, "Huh?" That's because we're human. Still, we do pretty well, I think.

And now I'm going to exercise come of that controlling personality to tell you what I think you should do. You should make your own choices without needing a majority rule to tell you that you're right. You should let everyone else make their choices.

After all, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Higher Ed

A friend recently wrote, poignantly, about her desire for a college degree and her regret at not getting one. Both of us can hold intelligent conversations with college grads on many subjects and neither has any reason to feel inferior. I wrote this years ago. I think the big difference between our attitudes is that I made a conscious choice not to seek a degree. I've taken community college and university classes. I may get that piece of paper one day. Looking through my daughter's course catalog, or the ones from the local U, has me saying, "OOOH, that sounds like fun!" frequently. I still can't justify spending too much money (and time) on personal fun at this stage of my life. So, I dabble. I pay for my kids' colleges - 2 down, 2 to go! And I am forever and always annoyed by people who think I'm living my life by default. I'm here because I wanted to be here when I made choices in the past. I want to be here in the future, which affects my present choices. Make no mistake, they are choices and I consciously make them.

One size NEVER fits all.

**********************************

I was always sure I'd go to college, from the time I was a small child. It was just a given fact. My parents, neither of whom had attended college, assumed all four of us kids would. They even had a plan to sell some of their property to pay for our educations.

Somehow, only one of us ever graduated from college, and it wasn't me. The land never did get sold, much to my relief. I know they were being good parents and planning ahead, but I hated the thought of whittling their gorgeous acreage down to a standard suburban lot.

All of us were bright. When you're bright, your teachers all simply expect you to do well in school and go on to college, and our teachers expected that of all of us.

I was a sophomore in high school before I ever questioned my path straight to the local university. I think it may have started with my rebellion against having my courses laid out for me. I'd always been in the accelerated classes in junior high, where kids were automatically divided by ability. That was fine with me; it struck me as the way things should be. I started to chafe when I entered high school, when theoretically I should have more doors open to me.

Part of getting older was getting to choose your courses. In junior high, they'd let us choose electives, but in high school we even got to choose our required courses. As long as we had the correct number of credits in each area, we could choose which courses we wanted to take. Did you want earth science or life science? Poetry or American literature? It was great. What bothered me was the automatic assumption that I would have the same taste as all the other smart kids; or worse, that my taste didn't matter.

It seemed that everyone, from my peers to my teachers to my guidance counselor, had already decided which classes I would take. My peers were the worst. Even in our freshman year, I'd get comments like, "You're taking Algebra 1 instead of Geometry?" in an incredulous tone. Well, yes, I was. It was accepted that The Smart Kids took a combined Algebra 1-2 class if they had to take anything "lower level;" otherwise they went straight into Geometry. Even Algebra 1-2 was too much for me to want to handle. Math was not my strong suit, and I didn't much enjoy it. My choices in other areas were equally suspect. "You are going to take (fill in the blank), aren't you?" When I didn't take Spanish – my elective slot was filled by a theater class, something that was nonnegotiable with me – people were aghast. "But you have to have four years of a foreign language if you want to get into a good university!"

By my second year of high school, I was tired of the flak. I was tired of hearing, "But you're so smart!" as though I had signed up for special ed classes or some such thing. I was sick of hearing that I'd "never get into 'a good school.'" I wasn't applying to Harvard, thank you very much.

In my junior year, I quietly decided that I wasn't going to college. I couldn't imagine my parents being able to afford it, sold property or no. I didn't think I'd get enough scholarship money to make a sizeable enough dent. Student loans rubbed me the wrong way - I hate debt. A full time student existence was not in my immediate future. The other Smart Kids kept expecting me to Get With the Program. They were continually astonished, or disgusted, that I wasn't taking trigonometry. Although I expected to hold a job for most of my life, I didn't really want a career, and I couldn't see knocking myself out to pay for something I wasn't going to use. I didn't say as much, to my peers, teachers or parents.

By my senior year, I was sure. When the other kids would ask me what scholarships I'd applied for, or remind me of filing deadlines that were approaching, I'd tell them, "I'm not going to college." If I thought I'd heard it before, I was now listening to a veritable, never ending chorus of, "But you're so smart!" People were horrified. One of my closest friends stopped speaking to me for over a week, he was so upset. He was far more upset than my parents were.

In both my junior and senior years, I took only one Advanced Placement course each year, and that was English. I could walk through that in my sleep, and on occasion practically did. Although it goes against my nature to do sloppy work, I was no longer vigilant about deadlines. The standard treatment for late papers was to shave off half a grade or a full grade (depending on your teacher) for every day it was late. Knowing I'd done an "A" assignment, I knew what grade I'd get for turning it in a day or two late. I was no longer worried about my grade point average. Occasionally I'd feel guilty about that. Once, my teacher wrote, "Why, oh why can't these be in on time?" on an assignment I'd turned in late enough that the "A" work had earned a "C." I liked her and felt I'd let her down.

I had no way of knowing ahead of time that my last two years of high school would be extraordinarily traumatic for me, for matters unrelated to academics. I've always loved learning for its own sake, but I left high school embittered toward teachers, administrators and school government in general. When I finally signed up for some community college courses a year and a half later, I was still so traumatized that I was literally sick to my stomach at the thought of walking back into another classroom. I cried for days. The courses were the fluffiest stuff I could imagine, too – art, local history and fiction writing.

I was annoyed, before classes even started, by the attitude of the student helping me register. They had a list of standard questions they were supposed to ask you, to help the school track its enrollment. "What are these for?" the student behind the desk asked as I handed him my schedule.

I was puzzled. "For?"

He looked mildly annoyed. I was supposed to know the script, apparently. "Yes. For. You know – going towards a degree? Personal enjoyment?"

Now I got it. "Personal enjoyment," I said.

He looked up from the desk, absolutely shocked. "All these?" he wanted to know.

It was my turn to be annoyed. "Yes. All these," I told him in a steely voice. It was three lousy classes, for crying out loud. I was tempted to snap, "Have you no personal interest in art, history and fiction?" but I didn't. I figured the answer to that was pretty obvious.

I enjoyed the classes. The worst problem I had was that my art instructor had a habit of doing things for me when I asked a question, rather than explaining it. I was having fun; I'd signed up in order to have fun. Success!

I disliked the tendency most people had to categorize. I did not like it when someone tried to console me about the school, telling me that, "Plenty smart students go to the community college first," or "You can always transfer later." I was not feeling insecure about the college or my place there. Why were others? I also disliked meeting students who hastened to let you know that they were only there temporarily, that soon they would be on to bigger and better things. I wasn't impressed, and I didn't care.

I was scheduled to get married toward the end of the semester. Just before the wedding, my soon to be husband was transferred to a facility three and a half hours away. We'd be moving to a new town as soon as we were back from our three day honeymoon. I dropped out of my classes, knowing that I would never make the commute to attend them, and too tied up in the wedding and moving to see if other arrangements could be made.

The next time I signed up for higher education, it was correspondence classes. By then, I had a husband, a mortgage and two small children. I was perfectly happy with the correspondence requirements. I had up to a year to complete any class. The work wasn't hard, and they actually liked it when I thought for myself. A lot of my high school experience had been spent regurgitating whatever the teacher said. The teachers seemed to like it that way. Quote the teacher's own opinion, and they were likely to feel that you were paying attention. Use your own ideas, and they thought you'd been ignoring them.

Maybe I'm just touchy, but I also disliked a great deal of the reaction to my education by mail. One friend tried very hard to convince me that I needed actual classes with a physically present teacher. "You really need the support, and the exchange of ideas! Nothing compares to the discussions you can have with a good professor." Well intentioned advice, of course. Really, though, I think the issue is that she needs to be surrounded by other people who share similar ideas, and she needs to be around a professor who validates her work and opinions. I really don't need that much outside validation. She always seemed to assume that I needed whatever she needed. After all, we were both Smart People.

I also hated it when someone thought I'd finally seen the light. "Now you can start using your brain!" they'd say. What did people think I did in my everyday life, drool on myself? Did they imagine that raising two toddlers could be done on auto pilot? Besides, even if I had a degree in my hand, I'd be doing the same things every day as I currently was. I wasn't trying to make a pre med program or design cities of the future. I just wanted to raise children and a garden.

I found that my best bet, really, was to not discuss it at all.

I also found that, in the absence of any statement to the contrary, people who met me as an adult assumed I'd graduated from college. I corrected them when they said something about it. I never thought I ought to be embarrassed by my lack of credentials. Of course, this brought on its own trials.

After we moved back within commuting distance of the city I grew up in, I went back to doing community theater. I'd spent two years working with the local university's repertory company before I got married, and it felt comfortable to go back to work there. The students got university credit for their participation, but the company was open to everyone in the community.

While doing repertory theater, I made friends with a funny, talented man named Mike. He was a few years older than I was. We had great conversations. I got along famously with him. We would talk for hours. During the course of several plays, we got to know each other fairly well. I saw him outside of the theater, even having him join my husband, my kids and me for holiday meals.

One summer, he went back to the state he'd grown up in. When he came back, we talked about the trip. It had been awkward being around old friends and classmates, Mike said. "Their world just seems so small. None of them went to college, and most of them are still living in the same town. We just had nothing in common anymore."

"You know what it's like, " he said, "when you've grown up and moved on and other people haven't. We couldn't even hold a reasonable conversation. Without the experience of college, they just don't have much to say or any way to relate to you any more."

I was actually very amused. "Mike! I never went to college!" All I had under my belt then were three dropped courses.

He looked like I'd kicked him. "You didn't?"

"No! And it doesn't bother my friends a bit. My best friend from high school is a lawyer, and we still have plenty to talk about." Silly me, I actually thought that he'd realize that he'd been judgmental. "Dan never went to college, either."

After that night, Mike all but stopped speaking to me. I found that I suddenly made him very uncomfortable. There were no more long conversations, no more visits outside the theater, no phone calls. He barely smiled at me anymore. It was aggravating, but what was there to do? I eventually just wrote off the friendship.

By the time we worked together again years later, he seemed to have mellowed. We saw each other only at the theater, but I was again included in his general conversation. I was treated the same way the other members of the company were, including the ones with performing arts degrees. That was nice.

I'll still correct erroneous assumptions most of the time, especially if it's someone I'll be spending a great deal of time with. Sometimes, though, it's just not worth the effort.

Recently, Dan and I were hired to photograph a high school reunion. One of the reunion committee members was talking to me after the big reunion dinner, explaining that he hardly ever saw any of his high school classmates any more. "I'm just not as close to them as I am to the people I went to college with. You know how that works." It was a statement, not a question. Now, I thought, was a time to spit out some of the pat answers I knew he expected.

"Sure. In college, they're there because they want to be, not because it's the law or because mommy and daddy make them go. They're spending good money to be there, too, so they're a lot more invested in what's going on. And, you're less likely to end up sitting next to some waste case."

His face lit up as he accepted me as a kindred spirit. "Exactly!" he responded.

There are a couple of people I grew up with who simply wrote me off as a traitor to the cause years ago. Some, I'm sure, are puzzled still. Most probably don't even think about me any more, much less assess my choices. And, there are at least a couple who, despite their constant talk about how smart I am, are sure that I took the course in life I did simply because I didn't know there were other options.

That kind of sentiment really irks me. I've known people to think that my self esteem was just too low; they're sure that I just didn't grasp the fact that I could go to college. One well meaning friend used to be very vocal, constantly saying things to me like, "You just don't realize how remarkable you are!" It was tedious. Here I thought the entire point of being smart was to chart your own course.

Luckily, most people with these opinions have stopped saying such things to me. I used to hear, "But you could have been (or done) anything!" as if I myself did not have that information. I know that I could have. I weighed the options, I chose, I channeled my energy into my choice. Isn't that what being smart is all about?

It was irksome, too, to deal with people who thought that I was somehow supposed to feel hindered, positively chained, by having been born into a financially strapped family, and I was supposed to see higher education as a way to rise above my station, so to speak. Unfortunately, I've never particularly seen the term "ambitious" as being complimentary. Most ambitious people seem to me to be miserable; they're always scratching, biting and clawing their way to their goals. I have a much more mellow personality. I also never feared being "stuck" in suburbia. Suburbia is a pretty nice place. My long range goals were never in conflict with a picket fence in the 'burbs.

I'm still good at the things I've always been good at (and lousy at the things I've always been lousy at.) I was never one to feel that my brain was atrophying or that I was being stifled by taking care of children and a house. What I do every day is far more challenging than anything I ever did as a paid occupation.

I also can see no sense in leaving my children in the care of other people while I went out to change the world. Why would someone tell me I was overqualified to spend my day with children? Do we want our kids to be in the care of people who are not bright, well read and capable? When my oldest children were small, I was quite aware that I needed to make a concerted effort to occasionally speak to adults, preferably about topics unrelated to parenting, but most of that was due to the realization that I could very quickly and easily lapse into an isolated lifestyle. Now, years later, I worry less about it than ever. If I end up in my own little universe, well, at least it will be one I created.

When I used to complain to one friend about feeling stereotyped, I'd end up feeling even more frustrated. Why couldn't people assume I was smart unless I proved otherwise, I wanted to know. Her answers tended to make me angrier than I already was. "Well, you have to understand that you're the exception," she would say. "Most people in your situation aren't."

"How would you know?" I'd end up snapping. She probably wasn't on speaking terms with half a dozen non college grads. How would she know what "most" of them are like?

I often read letters from highly educated friends whose grammar and punctuation make me cringe. I've had teachers send home notes with my kids that contain glaring errors of the same sort. I may be guilty of using too much slang in my speech and writing, saying things like "gonna" and "hafta," but by golly I know what the rules of the language are. Yes, I occasionally choose to ignore them. I'm sure speeders know the speed limit, too.

I enjoy education for its own sake. With luck and more than a little money, one day I may end up having taken enough classes to qualify for a degree. I won't feel any better about myself, and my career goals won't be any different.

I stopped years ago trying to convince this small, vocal faction that my self esteem is fine. I truly try not to worry about the people who fear that I've somehow been swallowed whole by mediocrity. It is not my job to worry about or change perceptions. If there is joy in being smart, it ought to come from knowing that you are doing with your brain exactly what you want to do with it.