Living Outside the Box

Categories are tough. Conforming to a category is really tough.

I recently started trying to fit my blog posts into categories, which you can see if you scroll down and look to the right of this. It's not easy. Most of my posts fit into a lot of different categories, or none. That's how my brain works. One minute I am thinking about different recipes for spinach, the next moment I am pondering how to help Michael learn his multiplication tables. I probably have a bit of ADHD, but I try to use it to my advantage.

The children came to me the other day and said they want to tell people at school that they are younger than they really are. Alesia has decided to tell people she is 15, and Michael to tell people he is 11. While I normally think honesty is the best policy and would not condone this, I responded positively to the fibbing about age. My kids are 2-3 years older than the other kids in their same grade. It's embarrassing to be the only 17 year old in the 10th grade. It's embarrassing for Mike to be in 4th grade at 12 years old. I have worked very hard to help them advance - I've tutored them, Mother has tutored them, we've spent great amounts of time and money on supplemental books and materials - but the school has offered no help, and my kids are, for the moment, stuck.

Recently, a reader sent me a rather mean comment saying I should worry more about Michael being behind in school than about him being different. I wanted to say, what on earth do you propose I do? I cannot afford private school, or full-time tutors to homeschool him. He's only been speaking English just over a year. Michael has been tutored 2-4 hours a day, all this summer, by his grandmother. He has made a lot of progress. However, I cannot tutor him 18 hours a day and tell the school to put him in 7th grade this year, or even next year. For one thing, he deserves a childhood as normal as possible - not pushed to the brink of a nervous breakdown. For another, most adopted kids who are not babies are a year or two behind in school. My children need to learn how to be comfortable being different from their peers in school.

You may think me letting them lie about their ages is a bad idea. I don't think it's a good idea in the long run. However, at the moment anything I can do to help them feel happy and comfortable in school, I will do.

I was a shy, fat kid, with few friends in school. I was very smart, but socially awkward. I also went to a lot of different schools my first few years, for various reasons. So I am very sympathetic with how my kids feel. They have funny accents. They don't know a lot of English words. Some things are just beyond them, culturally - Alesia said last night she doesn't understand the word politics, for instance. She is very naive. It's awkward for them to explain their painful backgrounds, even to grownups.

Most people unfamiliar with Russia, or adoption, or older child adoption, just cannot fathom what a huge adjustment my kids have had to make. At times, it's overwhelming to them. Some of Alesia's high school teachers have demonstrated quite brutally that they don't care, and they won't give her any extra help whatsoever. Her art teacher last year was just a nightmare. I'm still trying to get Alesia an IEP.

Assimilating to a different culture doesn't happen overnight. For most humans, it takes years. My kids are wired differently.

Since I can't wave a magic wand and make their school problems disappear, I have to help my children be comfortable being different. Michael's accent is minimal and he will probably someday soon be able to "pass" - people meeting him won't pick up on anything different, except his missing hand. Alesia's accent seems destined to be permanent, although most people she meets have no idea she is Russian born. However, for the reasons mentioned above, and others, they have to learn to accept and like themselves as being different.

It has taken me a long, long time to accept that I am different. I have never easily fit into any category, even nonconformist. As a kid, I liked dolls and tomboy things. I enjoyed cooking and playing football in the street. I wrote poetry, and I liked to go fishing. My family was nonconformist in a lot of ways. Manners and obedience were very important in my house. Watching sports was not. While other parents in the south used the "N" word casually and easily, in my house my parents never said it, and it was a spanking offense. We talked about history and politics at the dinner table. I was taller than every kids in my class until the 6th grade. I just never fit a category. 

My entire life has been different. I didn't follow the normal course of going to school, getting married, working or staying home, having two kids and living in the suburbs. I happen to have two kids and live in the suburbs at the moment, but there are very few single moms who match my demographic. I am very opinionated but I try not to offend people - that took a long time and it's a skill I am still working on, the not offending part I mean. I am very creative, but not particularly good at drawing or sewing or "craft" things. I have a high IQ but I'm not a genius. I come from a family background that looked white bread and conservative, but my parents were both unique and didn't fit neatly into categories either. We're all a bunch of oddballs.

My brother and I have sometimes had a tough relationship, because, as my mother like to say "He marches to a different drummer." I tried in my younger years to fit in, and he never did. Brother has always thought and said and done exactly what he wanted. He has conformed only as much as necessary. He truly doesn't care if people don't like his house, or his haircut, or his opinions. He is comfortable with himself, and that's what matters. I want my children to be like him, in that respect.

Alesia and Michael both care very much about whether they are liked. Most kids do, I bet, but they don't have the marked differences to contend with. Like me, my children don't fit neatly into any category.

I constantly ponder ways to get Alesia and Michael to understand that if they like themselves, and demonstrate self-confidence combined with good manners, that others will like them and be drawn to them. They must never pander to anyone or anything just to make friends. This is a huge challenge for me as a parent.

The fibbing about their ages is OK, to me, for the moment. I have to help them accept that it's OK to be a little older than their peers, but they aren't there yet.

When I was a kid I wanted to fit in. I used to fuss about getting the latest toy, or clothing item, or whatever would make me feel part of the "In" group. Even as a young adult, I used to worry excessively about superficial things like my hair. I don't know exactly when I changed from being concerned about others' opinions to being completely my own person. I suspect it was when I got Alesia home and realized that the only truly important job I've ever had is being a mother, and nothing else even comes close to that in importance.

I can't give my kids the private school educations I'd like them to have. We can't afford a big house or a new car. I can't afford expensive vacations, or designer clothes for them, or so many material things their friends have. I can't supply them with a father. We don't even have extended family members who are consistently in our lives, to my regret. However, if I can figure out how to teach them to be happy with themselves, and to contentedly march to the beat of their own drummers, I will feel like I've done a good job as a parent.