I Don't Know Where She Gets It!

As most of you have figured out by now, I am one of six teachers at the school this year who have children that are also students here. I have the good fortune to teach all six of those students at various times during the day, so any trip to the faculty room seems to turn into a parent-teacher conference of some sort.

"What did you think of Tim's essay?"
"Did Gabby turn in that late assignment?"
"Bekah stabbed herself with a pencil and has to have it surgically removed. What will she miss while she's gone?"

It's generally small talk, common observations about a kid we both know in different contexts, often punctuated by humor.

Then there's my own kid.

"Is it just in my class, or has she got an attitude at home too?"

Attitude? She's developed an attitude in class? Of course she has always had an attitude at home. One of the qualities that will serve her best in life but will cause us to have the most fights while she still lives in my house (because she inherited it from me) is her tenacious grip on the belief that her way is always the right way. This often exhibits itself in the condescending eye-rolling and dissatisfied huffing (ring a bell with any of you?) that I call "attitude." (It usually starts whenever I ask her to do anything that doesn't involve the TV or the Internet.) I've always known she had it, even on the day her younger brother was born, but up to now she has been pretty good about keeping it at home. All through elementary school, she was a teacher's favorite, a pleaser, the kid who was happy and helpful and scored high on all the year-end tests. Her teachers were completely unaware of her dark side.

Because I never wanted to be accused of favoritism, I basically ignored her through most of seventh and eighth grade even though I saw her in the halls twenty times a day. I never told any of my colleagues that she was my kid (although some already knew), and I never tried to win her any special favors. Except for those first scary days of seventh grade, she seldom ever came into my classroom...and once after school when she did stop by, she got her arm broken by her little brother who was then big enough to deal with her attitude. (Ask her about that one.)

All seemed to be going well. She was a good student in every respect; she had friends (many of whom I had known since they were in Mrs. Nielsen's kindergarten class at Morgan) that I liked and trusted; and she seemed to be well-adjusted and basically happy -- no attitude in sight. And, now, a month before the end of junior high, just when I thought I was in the clear: Attitude!?

So I started watching her a bit more closely in my own class. Sure enough, she's back there talking non-stop to Tyler. Granted, she has the assignment finished and it's a whispered conversation that I can't even hear, but she is not reading silently like she should be. How do I handle this? Well, to be perfectly fair, I have to first figure out how I would handle it with any other student. If it's Cody or Walker and they are talking silently enough that I can't hear them, I'm ignoring it because they usually talk loudly enough that everyone hears them, which makes me want to crush them in a scissor lock between my massive calves. It's not worth the battle. If it's Zack or Hayden and they're still in their seats, I'm ignoring it even if I can hear them because their practiced stupidity would only drive me to strangle them. The kid has still got good grades, and she gets her work done on time. She's a good writer, although she hates taking my advice on revisions. Yeah, I guess I can let it slide...this time. It doesn't seem like attitude to me.

Then the abbreviated cursing started up. It started with words like "shizz" and "buckfutter," but lately I've noticed she just leaves off the last syllable of what would otherwise be a very inappropriate word: What is this shih? What the fuh? Hey, bih! I haven't figured out yet if she's actually walking around the school spouting such abbreviations or if she is just doing it at home to make her mom mad. That's probably it.

[Side note: If you've completed all the reading assignments for this class, you know that some of the modern literature I have assigned contains small doses of profanity, language that is inappropriate in most social situations. I believe that cursing in literature often serves an important purpose, and for that reason I make no attempt to censor it. I am not afraid of what many people call "bad words," and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I sometimes let a few fly myself. BUT, and this is an important BUT, there are clearly times when it is completely inappropriate to swear. It's a simple rule: If there is a chance that someone who hears you is going to be offended by profanity, then don't use it. If you don't know for sure, don't risk it. If you are all by yourself out in left field and you feel like grumbling swear words under your breath, have at it! But if there are people around that will be bothered, just keep your mouth shut. And don't swear around little kids because they don't have the discretion to understand the social conventions that make cursing inappropriate. Why am I telling you all this? Because I said above that abbreviated profanity might make her mom mad, but I didn't say it would make me mad. In my case, it isn't the words themselves (or the abbreviated versions thereof) that bother me; it is the failure to recognize the social settings in which such words are inappropriate. To use them in such settings would indicate that my kid is too dumb to know the difference, and I would like to believe she is smart. I still think she is. I hope.... Or maybe it's just attitude.]

Then there are those angry mood swings. One minute she's a smiley-laughing-joking-around goofball; the next she's a dark thunderhead, a violent storm looking for someone to rain on. Is that a sign of attitude? Does she do that at school? My child???

But then it dawned on me: I've spent the last three years going out of my way not to "take care" of her school affairs for her. I've never chased her around from class to class making sure she got her assignments turned in, yet somehow she always did. I've never told her to do her homework, yet somehow it always got done. I've never expected her to receive favored treatment from any of her teachers, and most of the faculty-room-parent-teacher conferences have been positive. She's represented me pretty well at this school, and I can still hold my head up among my colleagues and be proud she's my kid. So maybe she does have an attitude lately, and maybe it's because she's a normal ninth grader who is looking forward to summer. Maybe I should just let her handle it.

That's my attitude!

Ninth-Grade Dance, 1996