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Late bloomer or not — mum’s the word

Posted By Scott Warnock On In virtual children by Scott Warnock | 15 Comments

My daughter, light of my life, just missed the honor roll once. One half-grade better, and she was in the Promised Land. When I found out, I didn’t chew her out, though our conversation did get crunchy. Tired of it after a while, she hit me with this: “Like you never got a bad grade in high school?”

First, her question was off. Her own grade wasn’t bad. Talking about the qualities of “bad” with her for a moment helped me to evade the main component of her kind-of inquiry: “Like,” hadn’t I received a bad grade in my career?

In fact, I did receive bad grades – not borderline grades – in my school career. I’m not talking “Developing,” “Average,” “On-your-merry-way-with-a-little-effort-so-here’s-a-trophy.” I’m talking Failing. Inadequate. Unsatisfactory.

I didn’t tell her that at the moment, though. When she smelled an opportunity, teenage predator that she now is, and the pressure got too intense, I used my go-to parenting trick and ran out of the room.

The guilt since that conversation has eaten at me a bit though. As I sit here, a person who has written two books, a PhD in English, a job as a writing professor and director of the writing center at an outstanding university, a person who reads Pynchon for fun and writes this really cool blog, I couldn’t tell her, could I? I couldn’t reveal that among my bad grades, my academic stumblings, I, I …

I got a D in freshman English in high school.

Maybe if I told her I could argue that I was a late bloomer (citing Gladwell [1] and some prime examples [2]), even though the reality is that I was a dumb lazyass when I got that D. Maybe I could say that my hard-won pain is what I’m trying to help her avoid, although the pain was minimal and I somehow righted my grades and go on track later, in college and grad school.

So should I have told her? What does a kid do with that information from ma or pa? Feel better? Feel vindicated? Develop an excuse for sloth? She would likely use it to launch total ad hominem attacks: “How can you, get on my back about grades!” she might shriek, Macbeth witch-like. “You got a D in freshman English and are now an English professor! Gaahhh!”

I’m not going to use my already small readership for group therapy, so I won’t get into all of the other things I won’t tell her probably ever, the iniquities, poor judgments, the crimes …

Let’s just say some things are better left unsaid. Your late bloomerness (again, in many cases probably your stupid lazyassness) may make for a great Oprah story, but to your kids, it might be fuel, ammunition. They may even think less of us, confusing their perception of the heroic god-dad, and thus ruining our ability to deliver advice and commandments.

Obviously this gets way more complicated than grades.

Why put them through that? So my frosh D in English stays with us, okay? I have decided not to tell her – not just yet, at least.

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Scott Warnock [6]

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.