Who Wants Normal?

As I was growing up I was taught--you might want to sit for this one--that being normal was something to be vaguely ashamed about. It showed no imagination, being like everyone else. It required following instead of leading.

My dad was a rebel in a suit and tie. He loved challenging deeply held beliefs, things I brought home from school, from church. He made me look at things from all sides, and then I could stick with it or not. But I had to examine it. I had to support and defend it.

And what I didn't like I was supposed to change. Or stop complaining about it. Those were my choices.

My Mom was a different type of rebel. She wore tees with feminist sayings, her boobs bouncing because she hated bras. She would, in the middle of a bank or library or restaurant, loudly challenge someone who had said something cruel or racist. She was a Jew, and had grown up with stories of how her family left Europe before Hitler reached them. She heard stories of the ones who didn't get out. And she knew that letting hate go unchallenged was the fastest way to see it happen again.

Someone mistreating an animal would find this small, round woman in their faces. She confronted parents, cops, random people: anyone doing evil, she'd say, needs to faced. She was fierce and fearless and brave.








So while, yeah, I wanted to wear what other kids were wearing and wanted a boyfriend when other girls had them, I also loved having the unpopular opinion. I took on teachers (and was backed by my father when I could convince him I was right, or at least not wrong), I was on the debate team, I sided with underdogs. I fought the system when I could.

So as a parent, albeit a step, I don't get why parents want their kids to fit in. To belong. To be just like everyone else. I always thought being different was cooler, that looking towards yourself for approval was healthier then looking to a peer group: especially a peer group of unsocialized* teens.

Stand out; do what's right, not what's popular; speak up for those who have no voice; be yourself; be different...

Normal requires no imagination, it's the stifling of imagination.



*Socialization: this word does not mean what you think it means. As a homeschooler I hear cries about it all. The. Time. Real socialization is teaching kids how to be adults. Kids have to be around adults to do this. Kids don't learn to be adults from other kids. Their most influential people should be the adults in their lives, not a bunch of kids who don't know anything. Just saying.


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