While talking to my daughter a while ago, it occurred to me how simple life can be when one does not have exceptional children.
She's joined the school tennis team and has never played tennis before. She's a senior, but on the JV team (one of the benefits of a small school is that just about anyone who wants to can be on a school team). I asked if there was a game schedule yet and she said yes, but it doesn't matter because JV does not play any matches. Why not? She didn't know - I'm guessing that there are not enough JV players in the league to form whole teams. In fact, when our exchange student played basketball last year, sometimes there were not enough JV girls from one school to form a team so they just divided both teams randomly up into two teams so they could at least play. I love that.
If you're not going to compete, then what's the point of playing tennis for the school (and paying for it)? So you can get good enough to play on the varsity team, which is obviously not an option for a senior with no experience. "And that's just the way I like it," she said. She just wants the exercise and to have something productive to do with her friends after school besides homework and without having to embarrass herself in front of spectators.
Because I'm the parent of unexceptional kids, I don't have to worry about playing time and bad officiating getting in the way of sports scholarships, and she gets to concentrate on learning how to play and having fun. I don't have to splash out on an expensive tennis racket to make sure she's not playing at a disadvantage. No worries that they put Tiffany in instead of her while the college recruiter was there because Tiffany's mom, that bitch, is louder.
As just an above-average student and not an exceptional student, I don't have to worry about the stress she'd endure if she were to be in all AP classes, the concern that she'd be at a disadvantage because few AP classes are offered at her small school, or that she's stuck not learning enough in a math class with a brilliant mathematician who believes that teaching is nothing more than presenting and moving on. No worry about whether she'll be accepted to Stanford. If my kids were passionate about and gifted at anything, I'd do whatever necessary to help them pursue their goals. As it is, though, they haven't taken up too much of my time. It is more expensive, though, the lack of scholarship opportunities.
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