Abuse with an Excuse

Bit of an interesting situation with my younger daughter, she’s just coming to the end of her second last term in high school. She’s turning in amazing grades, but she’s feeling the pressure, not really sure what to study in post-secondary, but she’s got plenty of work to do and she’s dropping a class, Comparative Civilizations, CompCiv, she says it’s just too much work with too little payoff, not sure what she plans to do, but probably not history or archaeology. So she’s told the teacher and her counsellor and the counsellor called me this morning.

She was baffled, first of all – my kid’s getting like, 98% in the class, and that’s not usually when kids drop things, but on closer view, that’s part of it, she’s not trying to get out of the work it takes for a C., she can’t help but go all in, and it’s not worth the stress for this elective. She’s concentrating on sciences like bio and chem. Here’s the pleasure: this counsellor wanted to hear where we stood, how we felt about it, and she was like, “So I can say that your parents feel like . . .” and I was like, “No, not really.”

It’s maybe the last time I’m gonna get to do that, maybe the last time I get to tell a teacher or someone, “She already knows how we feel, and she can do what she wants.”

Gawd, how I have loved doing that! And how I’m going to miss it! Every time I tell a teacher that it’s a little like telling some adult bully from my own childhood where to get off. I mean, I was nice about it, of course, but still, I love that feeling. Of course, I don’t trust adults. She was nice, a peaceful hippie type from her voice, but just in case she didn’t get the message, I made sure to report the entire conversation to my kid, make sure she knows that I already told the counsellor that she can do as she likes, and she can tell her that she knows I did.

All in all, pretty fun. I’m gonna miss that.

Jeff

Jan. 6, 2016