More thoughts on smart kids

You know when you're facing a major life change, or any decision at all, it just so happens that you notice literature and other material on that very topic that popping up around?  Sure you do.

In the Jewish tradition, to which I belong, there is a special way of congratulating an expectant mother or father: 'be sha'a tova', roughly translated as 'let it come in a goodly hour.'  It's not mazel tov, as you probably suspected.  

Jewish people are notoriously superstitious.  Notoriously.  So much so that you don't buy anything for a baby before the baby shows up.  This is because Jewish people are also skeptical by nature.

At any event, I find it an appropriate form of congratulations.  And so, when I think about parenting, I feel as though I'm maybe getting ahead of myself, so I don't think about it too much.  But I do think about it a bit.  And so, the other day, I just happened to notice this crazy article about Chinese mothering, so-called (her term!).  The woman, Amy Chua, a law professor at Yale maybe, wrote this guide to getting a fully actualized child--be it a virtuoso pianist, a math wizard, and so on.  Madame Chua advocates the Chinese method of very tough love.  Calling your child 'garbage' and so forth, in order to instill discipline and hard work.  I have a feeling that Chua is perhaps trying to shock people into buying her book.

Anyway, I return to this theme that I mused about a few weeks back, of getting the best start for your child.  And so you must ask yourself--I must ask myself--what is it that I want to get my child to achieve?  And for Chua, it seems that she wants the same that many of us might: for her child to achieve great things.  Maybe she wanted to achieve even greater things than becoming a Yale professor.  I know I expected more than a normal life with a steady job with the Canadian civil service and maybe my child can out-achieve me as I sail into my 30s with no particular drive to excel and not having the same expectations of myself that I may have had a decade ago.  

But I digress.  Yes, of course we should give our children possibilities to explore themselves, as my parents did for me with piano lessons, judo lessons, kung-fu lessons, basketball lessons, computer lessons, enrichment classes, and so on.  But, really, do I want to torture my child into greatness?  Probably not.  Take a breath, Chua, and calm down.  It is a law of contemporary society that families generate children that are--or will find a way to believe that they are--screwed up in some way.  No need to make this painfully obvious.

One thing that I might turn my attention to in terms of expectant parenting is sign language for the kid.  I look forward to reading about it and hey, it might raise the baby's IQ! 

Finally, my thoughts and hopes for a good outcome for the young capoeirista who collapsed in class today.  Try to make it, M. Lavertu.  We're rooting for you.

Just a quick update here; it seems my capoeira friend didn't make it.  Rest in peace.