I’m so upset right now, I don’t know what to do.
Yesterday my five year old (read that again, I said five… it’s important) and I were in the car and learning about directions. North, South, East, West. My rear view mirror has an indicator in it and every time we turned we talked about which way we were headed. She seemed like she was struggling to remember even after getting it right several times. She’s been doing this more frequently with a lot of topics she knows backwards and forwards and it’s frustrating but I try not to let her know I’m frustrated. We turned again and the indicator changed to SW and she immediately shouts out “South West!!” I get super excited and congratulate her because YaY she gets it but then I hear a muffled “Oh No.” from the back seat and look to see her covering her mouth with her hand like she said a bad word.
After a lot of questioning about what the heck just happened, she finally admits.
“I didn’t mean to be smart. Girls aren’t supposed to be smart.”
Y'all. I almost broke down into tears right then and there. I asked her what she meant by that, girls are smart! Mommy is smart right? My FIVE year old was getting so upset because she had let it slip she knew things and I didn’t seem to be able to make any difference. Eventually, we got to the kicker….
“But boys don’t like girls who are smart.” She tells me, clearly distraught.
“Fuck boys.”
This, at least, gets the little light of my life to laugh again. She knows mommy has said a bad word and it always makes her giggle. I’m seething in rage that she has been taught to hide her intelligence already, but at least I’m not keeping her mood down in the dumps… I guess.
I’m not one hundred percent sure where to go from here. Honestly, I’m not even ten percent sure. I let the topic drop yesterday because I was too upset to make rational decisions and we went home and played Snipper Clippers… a game that requires you to think… and worked on the puzzle she got for Easter.
And then I read her a story about a bunch of puppies trying to feed themselves while their owner is sick because she is FIVE and can’t read on her own yet. She can’t read, but she knows boys don’t like girls who are smart.
We try so hard, to teach her to think, to problem solve. We encourage her when she’s interested in ‘brainy’ things like the set of gears she loves to tinker with. But I can’t control every aspect of her life. I work. My husband works. In a few months she will be in kindergarten and around even more people and children of various ages than she is now at day care.
And I can’t help but think about this child, who KNOWS boys don’t like girls who are smart…
What else does she know?
