Mean Girls

As I began wrote this post, I found it spiraling out of control. I realized that I had a lot to write on this topic, and that trying to fit it into a single piece wasn't going to work. Consequently, I've broken this into three posts, all of which are only moderately meandering.

A while back, the wife and I were shopping for school supplies at the almighty Wal-mart. As she searched for the perfect spiral-bound composition book and I sought a two-pocket folder that didn't look totally lame, I came across a brightly-colored binder with a childish drawing of a rocket. Looking closer, I read the words "Boys are stupider...send them to Jupiter."

Now, normally, I'd just be irritated at the unnecessary ellipses and the fact that a semicolon would have better set off the independent clauses (as some of you might have noticed, I am a militant supporter of the semicolon). This time, however, I was irritated by the message. As I searched through the binders, I found several similar covers, all equally upsetting (albeit free of inappropriate ellipses). There was the one that pointed out that "Boys are smelly":
And another one advanced the novel suggestion that "Boys are dumb":

Later, when I got home, I found out that the creator of these nasty little notebooks had gotten in trouble over another logo, which thousands of retailers had pulled from their shelves after Glenn Sacks led a protest against it. Here's what it looked like:

Okay, I admit that I have been known to engage in the occasional episode of bad taste, but there was something about this that made me really queasy. A big part of it had to do with the target demographic; while these notebooks might be ironically flirtatious if carried by college-age women, Wal-mart was marketing them to elementary-school aged girls. They were at child-eye level, mixed in with the Care Bears, Sponge Bob, and My Pretty Pony merchandise.

Not to get melodramatic, but I can easily imagine what it would be like for an insecure third grade boy to see this notebook in class. I found it hard to believe that people were actually putting these messages out there. Yet there they were, on sale at the Wal-mart.

This dovetails nicely with recent studies showing that boys are beginning to seriously underachieve in elementary and high schools. Apparently, the structure of a traditional classroom, with its emphasis upon self-control and independence, is not ideally suited to boys. According to this article from the Voice of America, 70% of poor or failing grades go to boys, and boys are far more likely to exhibit learning disabilities. For that matter, boys apparently lag about a year behind girls in terms of maturation.

When I first started teaching, academia was still in the grip of a nationwide struggle to improve the performance of girls in school. I was given numerous pamphlets and textbooks that instructed me to actively encourage my female students. I was taught strategies for increasing female involvement in the classroom, and advised to intensely focus on "drawing out" my shy co-eds. I remember being impressed at the level of attention given to student welfare; as far as I was concerned, the gender issue was secondary to the concern of increasing student engagement and being sensitive to student needs.

A decade later, the situation is rapidly reversing, and I'm not too impressed with the public response. Admittedly, I'm a little sensitive about this, as I was diagnosed with a learning disability in third grade. Like many other boys, I found it hard to organize my work and concentrate on my teachers. Years later, I discovered that I was not alone. In some school districts, as many as 40% of all students were diagnosed as either learning disabled or gifted and talented, which means that almost half of all students were unsuited for the mainstream classroom. The vast majority of these "learning disabled" kids were boys.

Admittedly, I have a problem with the entire issue of learning disabilities, but, apart from that, the diagnoses are so gender skewed that I have to wonder if this problem is sexism masquerading as science. If so many boys can't function in a standard classroom, mightn't there be a problem with the classroom, not with the boys?

Snuff-Film Imagination

When I was very young, I was diagnosed with MBD, or Minimal Brain Disfunction. Basically, this meant that I tended to call out in class, was chronically disorganized, and didn't like to focus on my math homework. When I read books on MBD (which was later changed to ADD and then ADHD), I discovered that the symptoms ranged from hyperactivity to hypoactivity, from excessive intelligence to substandard intelligence. In the late seveties, MBD was a catchall for every student who didn't fit into a standard classroom.

Anyway, the upshot was that my parents didn't want me put on Ritalin, so I had to see a psychiatrist when I was in third grade. They finally found a good, highly recommended one in Georgetown, Dr. Kraft. Within a week or two, I had figured him out. He was a nice guy, but was a little too insecure. He had a problem connecting meaningfully with women, and was very uncomfortable with his own looks. Week after week, I would go to his office in Georgetown, where we would discuss his problems and try to find creative solutions to them. In other words, therapy was a total bust, at least for me.

As time went on, I started getting tired of Dr. Kraft. To be honest, he was just a little too needy. More to the point, it seemed silly to me that my parents were paying $90 a week for me to listen to his problems. Also, I got the feeling that our sessions had become a little too much of a crutch for the good doctor--he needed to move on.

So I found myself with a problem. If I told my parents that I was finished with therapy, they'd never believe me. In fact, when I tried to broach the subject, they decided that my irritation was a definite sign that Dr. Kraft and I were making progress. To get out, I'd need to be a little sneaky. I remember trying to think of ways to escape. After a few weeks, I figured it out.

That night, I drew a picture. It was of a stick figure blowing up. Stick arms, legs, torso, and head were all flying in different directions. I used the better part of a red crayon to give the picture verissimilitude. It wasn't very good, but it was clear enough to make my father choke, and he practically recoiled when I handed it to him.

"What is this?" my father asked.

"A picture," I replied.

"Why did you draw this?" he asked.

Now was the crucial part. The smallest smile on my part could ruin the whole thing. No problem; I'd practiced. Looking at my father with the wide-eyed look that I'd perfected in the mirror, I said "I thought Dr. Kraft wanted me to."

The next week, my last week in therapy, Dr. Kraft told me that I'd see him again, and that I should feel free to call him whenever I needed to talk. I assured him that it would be okay, and he tried to be brave. Apart from a few phone calls, I never heard from him again. My father later told me that Dr. Kraft had offered to see me for free, but they had turned him down.


This strange thing, my snuff-film imagination, only grew over the years, and was always a reliable tool for dealing with bullies and assorted annoyances. In sixth grade, I found numerous ways to get people to leave me alone. One day, a seventh grader was making my life difficult, so I started giving him a funny look. When he asked me what was up, I replied, in a calm, steady voice, "I'm imagining your head exploding." His eyes were latched onto mine as I continued, "it's like a cherry tomato with an M-80 in it."

For some reason, my classmates thought I was weird.

Luckily, I discovered a fair number of fellow horror film fanatics in high school. I realized that, even if I wasn't necessarily normal, I was, at least, relatively healthy. When I got my first job, I used to go down to the record store every week to buy one horror film. I would take it home, watch it, analyze it, and add it to the collection. I have probably seen over a thousand people killed in more ways than I can count, and it has left only mimimal scars on my psyche. It has, however, only fueled my freaky imagination. With very little effort, I can visualize fairly horrifying things. (It's worth noting that I have the same skill with pornography, but that's another post).

Anyhoo, flash forward a few years and a few hundred horror movies, and I find myself raising a little girl. A little girl who now seems to be able to occupy five places at the same time. A little girl who seems to love endangering her little life.

In my imagination, George has turned into a suicidal version of MacGuyver. Give her anything--anything--no matter how small, and I can tell you five ways that she can maim, kill, or mutilate herself with it. A rubber band? Easy--she can choke on it, cut off her circulation, get it caught in her nose, flick her eye out, use it to piss off the cat (who will surely respond with claws bared), strangle herself with it, or use it to shoot deadly missiles into her brain.

A piece of tinfoil? Don't get me started; in my overactive imagination, she's already fashioned an aluminum dagger that she's jammed into her eye, her ear, her nose, or her heart. This is, I should point out, after she's swallowed part of it, and sliced up her tender little internal organs.

And so it goes with lockblocks, Tickle-Me-Elmo toys, baby spoons, plastic key toys, stuffed animals, and drums. I realize that the talking caterpillar won't kill her, but I am constantly tempted to put it in the blender. Of course Crayolas are non-toxic, but still...

The other morning, I woke up convinced that my daughter was in the kitchen, where she'd found the knife blocks (which, incidentally, are a very safe distance beyond her reach), and was doing terrible things. I knew it was just my imagination, but I still checked in on her. Just in case.

I realize, of course, that this is all a little ridiculous. On the other hand, I also feel like it's some sort of cosmic retribution for the fact that I allowed my imagination such free rein for so long. Now that I have something to really worry about, I'm unable to turn the damn thing off.

I'd like to write more, but I gotta run. It's been quiet for a while, and I think she might have just gotten into the Q-tips. 1001 uses, and at least 327 of them could, conceivably, leave her maimed for life.