Listen, I love kids. Got one myself. I go to all of her functions. A lot of times I'm the only dad present. I try to be wacky and fun and make her friends laugh. Did I mention I love kids? Big kids, little kids, skinny kids, fat kids, tall kids, short kids....smart kids, dumb kids (let's be honest about it - where do you think dumb adults come from? That's right, dumb kids grow up too)....but if you noticed, the one kind of kid I didn't mention was - the dorky kid. Humanus Dorkus, if being watched by Wile E. Coyote. I hate to rag on kids and I won't use any pictures or names - but for lack of anything good on TV last night - I watched the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Egad. E-G-A-D. Egad. Now I know what Bill Gates must have been like at 12. I'm telling you what, my daughter is no slouch at academics at all, but given the choice of an afternoon play date with any of the 15 finalists or spit shining her room every night for the next year - her mouth would be pretty dry at night. There are smart, bright kids...and then there are the Stephen Hawkings of the world when they were preteens. These kids are so scary smart, they aren't normal! How on Earth does a kid who composes music and solves math equations for a special math program at an esteemed university sit around with the boys and discuss whose ass is nicer, Hilary Duff's or Brenda Song's. These 12 year old boys lock their doors and worry about German. Most 12 year old boys lock their doors and study with Herman, the one-eyed German. Tell you what....line up all 15 of those kids and you'll have two things. You'll have 15 of the best spellers in the country and you'll also have 15 kids without a tan who can't catch any of the spheres used in organized sports. The one mother said "My daughter isn't a nerd or a bookworm." Well, who asked you? Nobody mentioned that yet she offered it right up. Less than 5 minutes later she was recalling how a few years ago her whimsical daughter was so worried about global warming that she typed up flyers about checking your parent's tire pressure and handed them out in the school hallways. Ok, that's perfectly normal....for someone who hasn't turned 13 yet. Can you imagine the pressure on these kids? Remember the one year when the kid passed out at the mic and it made it around the web? These poor, poor...POOR kids! All the parents say "they just love this so much". I cry BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT they like it so much. These twisted folks have their kids brainwashed to believe that they like it. How many 11 year olds have the plums to tell mommy dearest that they would rather go see Green Day than stay home and study Latin conjugations? I can just hear them...."you still want to be in the Bee this year...DON'T YOU honey?" Didn't they see Akila and the Bee? Don't they know that's THEM? Sure, the one kid is well rounded who composes piano concertos and can find the area of a peanut using the cylindrical shell method, but some of the others...you could just feel it... they want to make their parents happy....and the stupid parents are too blinded by the attention to see it. Nobody talked about friends or groups or teams..... I would love....LOVE....to read a paper or article about the 15 finalists 15 years from now. Do they crumble under the pressure later in life? Are they doctors? Are they on welfare? Are they playing bass in Weezer? I would simply love to find out as I'm very curious. Kids need to learn how to relax and hang out...just kick it with their homies. Did you see the movie Stand By Me? Classic movie about kids that age just kickin' it. Leave the house after getting home from school and don't come home until the street lights come on. Seriously, how many of those 15 finalists have done that so far this spring? This grouped looked like any one of them could fall flat on their face as they walked to the mic....they looked that uncoordinated. Except the one kid from Canada...which begs the question about it being the "National" spelling bee. Kids grow up way too fast these days as it is, let's let them bee kids a little longer. I almost feel bad for calling them dorks. Let's change it to the parents are dorks, and the kids are just odd. Just a little odd. Like Rosie is a little fat.....and a little gay.
1 comment:
We need those real smart dorks. Many of them will not make a lot of money, but some will. Some will suffer from psychotic episodes later in life but we still need them. It's OK that the parents are assholes. Most of my generation are assholes. Greedy self-centered assholes I might add. Besides,somebody has to teach the dumb kids that there are 2.2 pounds in that kilo the cops found in their trunk.
We need the dumb kids too. I am constantly reminded in my job that "But for the idiots, the rest of us could not succeed." Which means us middle of the road people need them the most. We were "kickin it" and experimenting with as many of lifes opportunities as we could while the dumb kids sat in front of a TV watching cartoons and the smart kids sat in front of their slide rules (and later) computers. Some wrestled with the notion that Wile E. Coyote, Genius, might actually catch the Road Runner. While others were calculating the standard deviation of using the cylindrical shell method vs. the inverted area postulate for determining the area of a peanut.
It takes all kinds to make the world go around. Humanus Dorkus may not end up as smart as you think anyway. All they do is limit their life experiences, which is sad.
Hybrids happen too, like Bill Bradley. One of the last great white college basketball players, the dude was an egg-head. With the degrees from Princeton and Oxford (Rhodes scholar) to prove it. But he also has an NBA championship ring. And proving his well rounded education and life experiences taught him well, he was smart enough to retire from the US Senate because of all my generation's greedy politicians getting in the way of doing the right thing.
As Herman Ze German might say, "Get yourself a few Hefe-Weizens at ze bier garten. Zis vill all vork itself out. One cannot vorry about ze fools of ze world no matter if zey can spell Schnitzengiggles or not."
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