It’s Elementary
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008In a few days my elder son reaches a milestone with his first day of school. His mother is suitably excited and his father has some lessons of his own to share. This is what I learned in my early school years.
MAKE YOUR MARK EARLY
On the first day of kindergarten, I looked up a girl’s dress. While I now think this was a largely innocent and amusing expression of the particularly male curiosity, the early ‘70s were a puritan time in Toronto and the teacher felt my mother needed to be told about my inappropriate behavior, along with a suggestion that I be firmly reprimanded at home. That would become a pattern in the ensuing years. I recall this particular reprimand being rather light, in the “don’t do that again” vein. The girl? Possibly traumatized; she definitely learned something of boys’ interests and the power of her undeniable magnetism at an early age. Herself became a mother as a teenager.
NEVER REVEAL YOUR INTERESTS
In Grade One we were asked to draw a picture of ourselves at home, engaged in an activity we liked. I submitted a depiction of myself “relaxing with my noods” [sic]. To explain: in my leisure hours, I was frequently drawn to spending time with a book called A History of the Nude in Art, which was a picture book of you-know-what. My teacher told my mother that she understood my healthy interest, because she was from Denmark, but I should be encouraged not to share that kind of information again, lest some less progressive teacher call Child Services or something.
CHOOSE YOUR FRIENDS WISELY
On a walk around the neighbourhood, a friend and I found a couple of ‘skin mags’ in the bushes. One was called Show Boat and I forget the other. They were pretty raw and most illuminating. One featured a pictorial essay of a women shaving herself there. I learned a great deal about anatomy from these illustrated texts. It fell to me as man of the world to keep the mags in my parents’ garage for later repeated viewings. Selected schoolmates were invited in the following weeks for exhibitions of this forbidden art. One such weenie-masquerading-as-cool-guy went home and told his mother what he saw at my place. She called the school. The school called my mother. I lied in saying the magazines had already been relocated elsewhere and got away with it. I was never friends with that kid again.
ART ISN’T UNIVERSALLY APPRECIATED
In third grade, I drew a picture of my rather comely teacher in fishnet stockings, garter, and torpedo bra. (My tastes were pretty advanced for an 8-year-old, thanks to my early dedication to research. Regrettably, my skills as a portraitist didn’t equal my enthusiasm.) She found the picture and chose to find no flattery in it, saying something sternly disapproving to me as well. Dashed were my high hopes that she might model for my next work but, thankfully, at least she didn’t call my mother.
Some other notable adventures happened in those same years but I think the theme of apprecition/objectification is clear here, along with phone calls home. It was a rich and educational childhood. I was and remain a good student though I got poor grades. I have found that what other people choose to evaluate you on rarely corresponds with what you yourself value.
I trust my son will do well in school and have a great time of it most of the time. It’s entirely possible and indeed to be expected that he may occasionally associate with people we might not choose for his friends and through these connections find himself engaged in some understandable but inadvisable activities from time to time. When and if that should occur, I hope they don’t call his mother first.
