62-Year-Old Reading Level

Today, I took L to her potentially new school for testing. I have no idea what they were testing, actually. I would assume it was to find out if she knew all she was supposed to know by age 5-and-a-half. However, I don’t really know what that is. I’m hoping they asked her to quote from the movie “Madagascar,” because then they would think she was a genius.

I believe I have shared with you my penchant for underachievement. So maybe that taints my opinion of today’s educational expectations. But I am constantly amazed at how many parents question each other on what one child is doing in comparison to their own.

I conceded that there are certain developmental goals that we can all agree must be reached by a certain age -- if your kid ain’t walking by the time he is three, you might want to check into that. But, I feel bad for anyone who looks at their non-bi-pedal 13-month-old and laments that every other 13-month-old is already tap-dancing at the Y. Isn’t that awfully young to feel your child is already disappointing you? When, I am sure, there will be so many other times in their life when true disappointment is warranted.

Z will be three in May, and his speech is only now becoming something akin to English. And I know plenty of kids his own age who have been delivering Shakespearean soliloquies for nearly a year. But, I am not worried about my son. His speech will improve with time -- his own time, not mine.

But it is the little things that parents focus on that I find rather ridiculous. Because they are things that all children do eventually. And by the time kids are in high school, it doesn’t matter when they learned it, only that they did, indeed, learn it.

I don’t remember my college application asking me how old I was when I learned to tie my shoes. I’ve never gained or lost a friendship based on when the training wheels came off my bike. And I have never been to a job interview where I heard, “Ah, Ms. Owenby, it says here that you are 36-years-old, but are reading on the level of a 62-year-old! Impressive!”

I don’t care if your kid could spell the word DOG when he was 2-years-old. That will have no bearing on his ability to beat my child out of a job when they are both 25.If, at that time, my son still can’t spell DOG, then I’ll concede that your kid is smarter. But until then, I refuse to put my child up against any other and compare them based on some silly benchmarks in learning that society deems important.

So my advice to you all is to simply relax, people! They’re kids. Let them enjoy that. Because heaven knows, it don’t get much easier from there.

Oh, by the way, L could tie her shoes at the age of 4. That doesn't make her smarter than anyone else. Being able to keep up with me in the movie-quoting game, however -- well, that, my friends, is genius.