How I most recently failed our daughter

Dudelet, little elf’s brother, is eight and clever. Clever as in very clever, very academic but not at the extreme end of the scale. He learns easily (perhaps a bit too easily), has developed a ridiculous vocabulary for his age (I treasure the memory of his grandfather’s face when dudelet, at two and a half, gravely explained “…and this is a meditation stool”) and is one of the small group in his class who are sat together and given extra homework to “stretch them.” He’s also a bit moody, hyperactive, spends too much time on iPods, computers and GameCubes if given the change, and wakes up at 5am daily to read Michelle Paver. I can’t remember a time when he hasn’t clearly and cleanly distinguished between fantasy and make-believe. Most younger children walk a liminal line between the two if, at times, a slightly knowing one. For dudelet, his toys have always been toys from the moment he found words to express the concept (when he was nearly three). Imaginative play has always been story telling with a layer of ironic distance rather than projection. I sometimes feel he’s missed out.

Little elf, in contrast, rapidly acquired imaginary friends – in fact a whole imaginary family. She went through a phase of putting her babies everywhere and heaven help you if you sat on them. This was tricky because her babies were tiny and invisible. Her bedroom is full of monsters and fairies. Her toys talk and need their hair washed. Sometimes, they speak for her or she speaks for them (and therefore, for herself). Dudelet taught himself to tell the time and use a computer. Little elf has zero sense of time and seemingly no interest in acquiring one. She loves pink, dresses, ballet – a long list of normative little girl things.

Recently, we went to a parents evening. Little elf’s teachers and the classroom assistant sat behind the desk and beamed at her. Then dudelet took her off to play so we could have a conversation. We were in for a shock. Little elf was a bit disruptive. She didn’t want to play with others when she was supposed to. She’d only join in activities in her good time. She was cheeky. She threw things. She’d hide or pretend to be invisible.

Supermum and I looked at each other, baffled. We hadn’t expected this. Our four year throws the occasional (okay, regular) major strop but she’s usually…Well, there’s the drawing on the wall, the room demolition, the eating tantrums, kicking her brother, cheekiness…But she’s so funny…How could anyone…?

“Don’t get me wrong,” the teacher said. “we do love her. But she can be a proper little madam if she doesn’t get her own way.”

“But…” we chorused, trying to explain that we just didn’t recognise the portrait of a charming, manipulative little harridan that had just been painted for us.

The teacher scanned us both. She knows little elf’s brother who’s also got something of a reputation as a character at his school.

“She really is very clever, you know,” she said.

I confess, I think we both said “What?”

“Really smart – she’s a very intelligent little girl. She’s knows just what she’s doing.”

After which, the teacher went on to outline a strategy for managing her behaviour which has so far worked reasonably well. Meanwhile, we went away reeling. Little elf is clever. Why had we never noticed?

It isn’t that we don’t think she’s clever so much as dudelet has so thoroughly occupied the ‘clever’ slot in the family. Little elf had taken up the ‘charming, mischievous, cute” slot (and the speech issue probably doesn’t help).

How could I have let her down like that? How could I have allowed this to happen? And how typical! The ‘clever’ boy, the ‘charming’ girl! I’m so thoroughly ashamed of myself.

So I’m trying to monitor my behaviour, to look for ways in which I’m failing to actively empower her intellectually and (contrariwise) to be attentive to how I’m pushing dudelet into an altogether different stereotype. The other thing, of course, is to be aware that all stereotypes aside, they may well be expressing perfectly valid sides of their characters and identities to date. Who’s to say? It’s an ongoing project, parenting, and we can’t deny that she’s already equaling her older brother in sheer emotional intelligence. And, lastly, it could be argued that the fault isn’t that I’ve noticed she’s clever but that I put too high a default value on conventional evidences of intelligence. Little elf spins astonishing stories of giants and pirates and princesses and monsters who are invariably cut into little pieces. Dudelet likes to do sums, draw comics and invent sushi processing machines.

That’s enough navel-gazing – you get the picture. But, I’m still stunned by our failure to at least question the stereotypes we were setting up. Sigh.

Must try harder.