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Lately I
noticed a disturbing trend about myself: when confronted with a braggy
mom, something terrible happens: I feel the little hairs on the back of
my neck start to rise. It is almost as if my children have been
physically assaulted. For example, when Paul's mom called me
breathlessly to brag that Paul had earned a 29 on his ACT test, my
vision began to blur. My son
had received the same score, and well, I didn't want to come out and say
it to the woman, Paul being her son and all, but my son is, I have to
say it, MUCH SMARTER than hers. Of course I couldn't say that to the
mother. So I had to pretend to be excited for them both; wishing all the
while that I could just LIE and say that my child had received a perfect
score- and that he did the test while composing the next wave of modern
music. My angst
does not stem from the fact that I doubt in any way that my children are
brilliant, talented, and ultimately the future leaders of their
generation; it comes from some old playground logic which tells me when
faced with a brag- make up a bigger one. Plus, you know, these
woman are only bragging to me because they are really hoping to one up
me on the old playground of parenthood. It's their way, I think, of
saying, "Look, my kid has turned out so great, you big ole flake
you; what do you know about raising a child?" Not much, baby, I
should answer, but my kids are turning out pretty great in spite of me. Upon
further analysis, too, what really bugs me is that my two oldest
children, especially, don't really care about super-achievement. They
enjoy having fun with their sports, band, and school is merely a place
to cruise on through with the minimum effort, and so if that means a
"B" where an "A" could probably be, ahhh well. So in
light of all this competitive talk I'm getting from the other moms"
imagine this: when confronted with this lackadaisical attitude; I blow!
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GOT AN 88 on your Honors Chemistry
test?" I screamed at my oldest son when he showed me the paper.
"You didn't study; did you?" "Nope.
I was reading a really good book." He replied, nonplused. He was
used to me losing it over the endless stream of near-misses he brought
home. "But
don't you know, IT'S IMPORTANT to get good grades?" I countered. "B's
are good." He replied, tuning his guitar. "A's
are better." I shot back, scowling, thinking, 'how am I going to
tell Gary's mom my son got another B when Gary got his one millionth A?' He
shrugged, and put his headset on his head, strumming a tune; lost in a
world with a "no parents admitted" sign right on the door. What I
never tell my kids- EVER- which would probably be the key to all of
their underachievement is this: despite all my (professed by my parents)
"genius", when I was a senior in high school, I got kicked out
of National Honor Society. One too many B's or some such nonsense. I was
so head over heels in love with my future hubby at that time that I
barely noticed: the stripping of my honors was not even a blip on my
care-o-meter. And
despite all of that shame (probably for my mom when she couldn't brag to
the other moms, I now realize), I still managed to graduate from college
and pursue my dreams of becoming a writer, to raise this whole brood of
underachieving kids, and hold on to most of my sanity. But I have an ace in the hole. What these other moms don't realize is this: my oldest son, who is going to be a famous rock star one day, is learning an old ELO song on his guitar so that one fine day, when I go to his rock and roll concert with his daddy; he'll say: "I dedicate this song to my mamajama!" He told me he is going to do this, and I believe him. And so what if he doesn't become a doctor, and if that concert is at a Holiday Inn in Syracuse New York? If he is following his heart; and his days are as filled with sunshine and joy as mine are, then I'll be the proudest mom around. So take that, all you braggy mommies, you.
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