When Kids Are Different (From You)
My daughter inherited the "helpful" gene... from her dad.
by Kate Stevenson
My kid is joining
Sparks.
Thank god.
She needs to be with her people. The joiney, camping-ingy, helpy kinds of people. I am definitely not one of that group.
I was kicked out of Girl Guides. I can still remember the conversation. The Guide Leader was on one end of the phone and I was at the other, 10 years old, agreeing in a quavery- about –to- cry voice that we needed to part ways. The Guide Leader sounded mad with me -- as usual.
Back in the Guides of 70s New Zealand, we wore skirts with what looked like overall straps attached to them that went over our shoulders. Badges received for learning new skills would be sewn on them. By the time I was kicked out, girls I'd started with had badges going down both sides of their straps, around the waistbands of their skirts, and up the back again.
I had one badge. It was the one we all got the first week of guides, for cooking dough in aluminum foil in a fire. It was sewn at the top of a strap, as in “this is the first of many” instead of in the middle, as in “that’s it.” Adding insult to injury, it It hung loose. The stitching had come undone and the edges curled up where it wasn't stitched down. Sometimes I flapped it with my finger and made it talk. “I just want to be stitched down! I just want to be stitched down! ” I’d make it say. Then I’d make it cry a little.
I thought Guides were a motherfucking waste of my time. I was only doing it because my mother made me.
About 100 years later I met and married a man who had not only been a Boy Scout, he'd advanced even further into helpy-weirdo Venturer. He had so many badges his mother had to start sewing them on to blankets. And as it turned out, the child we had together is a wee clone of him, except she had a vagina. From barely walking she would try and help other babies walk. She likes nature. She wants to learn to knit. It has to be genes. It couldn't be me, as we know. Apparently, my partner’s genes had grabbed a club and beaten my genes down while at the same time being prepared and helping old ladies across the street.
I rang my sister because I knew she of all people would understand what I was going through. She picked up the phone. I told her about Sparks.
“She WON’T be a malingerer!” I announced.
“Wow.” replied my sister.
“I KNOW.” I replied back.
“What about avoidant behaviour? How’s that going?” She asked.
“Badly,” I said. “Child has no natural talent for it”.
Thank god.
She needs to be with her people. The joiney, camping-ingy, helpy kinds of people. I am definitely not one of that group.
I was kicked out of Girl Guides. I can still remember the conversation. The Guide Leader was on one end of the phone and I was at the other, 10 years old, agreeing in a quavery- about –to- cry voice that we needed to part ways. The Guide Leader sounded mad with me -- as usual.
Back in the Guides of 70s New Zealand, we wore skirts with what looked like overall straps attached to them that went over our shoulders. Badges received for learning new skills would be sewn on them. By the time I was kicked out, girls I'd started with had badges going down both sides of their straps, around the waistbands of their skirts, and up the back again.
I had one badge. It was the one we all got the first week of guides, for cooking dough in aluminum foil in a fire. It was sewn at the top of a strap, as in “this is the first of many” instead of in the middle, as in “that’s it.” Adding insult to injury, it It hung loose. The stitching had come undone and the edges curled up where it wasn't stitched down. Sometimes I flapped it with my finger and made it talk. “I just want to be stitched down! I just want to be stitched down! ” I’d make it say. Then I’d make it cry a little.
I thought Guides were a motherfucking waste of my time. I was only doing it because my mother made me.
About 100 years later I met and married a man who had not only been a Boy Scout, he'd advanced even further into helpy-weirdo Venturer. He had so many badges his mother had to start sewing them on to blankets. And as it turned out, the child we had together is a wee clone of him, except she had a vagina. From barely walking she would try and help other babies walk. She likes nature. She wants to learn to knit. It has to be genes. It couldn't be me, as we know. Apparently, my partner’s genes had grabbed a club and beaten my genes down while at the same time being prepared and helping old ladies across the street.
I rang my sister because I knew she of all people would understand what I was going through. She picked up the phone. I told her about Sparks.
“She WON’T be a malingerer!” I announced.
“Wow.” replied my sister.
“I KNOW.” I replied back.
“What about avoidant behaviour? How’s that going?” She asked.
“Badly,” I said. “Child has no natural talent for it”.