On Popularity

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I’ll admit it; I never considered myself popular as a child. Or as a teen. Or even in college. College was better—because I was able to find my tribe. And I am not popular as an adult.

In high school I was the girl who liked drama class more than anything else, read graphic novels and dyed my hair to match my clothes. I also ended up pregnant at 16, dropped out of school, and left small town life for ever and ever. Today I still have a penchant for graphic novels, zombies, and teens fighting to the death in dystopic fiction (oh, you do too? Yeah, but did you BEFORE you heard that there was going to be a movie?). I like to garden, hate to shop for clothes, and prefer to avoid most social situations. I seek out academic journals and classic fiction. I’m moody. I easily get bored with others.

And most importantly—I don’t relate well to women my age (or many women, in general—I’d rather talk baseball with the guys). Most women my age are in the midst of toddlerdom and preschool and spacing out their children and their first forays into house decorating and holiday hosting. I went through that ten years ago, when these women were living it up in their twenties and partying every night. I just can’t relate to them—because we’re done with that stage in life, and I never really did well in that stage to begin with.

And the women who are in my stage of life? They’re ten to twenty years older than me, and more often than not, they just stare at me. Trying to figure out how old I am.

So imagine my surprise when K turned out to be the golden child poster-boy of popularity. He’s an extrovert, articulate, opinionated, strong for his age (apparently this is a BIG deal amongst the guys), and musical. His peers FLOCK to him. It’s disconcerting for me.

K’s popularity is what made me realize that I want both of my boys to be popular and have fun through their childhoods. I won’t say that my lack of popularity is bad—because it’s not; I am completely happy in my own little world, for the most part—but I did not want to negatively influence or impact my children with my antisocial tendencies.

So, sometimes I’m concerned about Ant—and it has come up this year with his school (what hasn’t?).

Now, I know I am biased; I’ll openly admit that. I am of the opinion that Ant is socially advanced for his age. He’s highly empathetic. He knows what he likes. He has well-reasoned opinions, and is slow to move to emotion (usually). What I see tells me that other kids know him and like him. Walking in to the school each morning is like the red carpet of elementary school high fives and hellos.

Yet, he is innocent and open about everything. He wears his heart on his sleeve all day, every day.

The thing is, Ant loves video games, comic books, reading (now that we’ve worked on that intensively at home for nearly three months), superhero T-shirts (Justice League, Green Lantern, you name it…) and the Big Bang Theory (the TV show, although his penchant for theoretical physics also appears to be strong). He loves Lego's and Star Wars and everything else that you would stereotypically attribute to being a nerd, plus Motown and Lady Gaga. Which we fully support in our house, because it is who he is.

Plus, I’m of the opinion that this is a great time to be a nerd in our society.

But, his school uses terms like “socially immature” and “does not relate well to his peers” and “depressed.” Which scares the living crap out of me for two reasons: 1) because this is not what I see when I see him interact with his peers, or at home, and 2) because Ant is a huge guy for the age of nine (at 5’4” and over 100 pounds, he is head and shoulders over his fellow third graders) and my husband—who was also a huge guy at the age of nine (and beyond)—says that this can draw a certain amount of “negative attention.”

Enter in the tendency for his teacher to label him the black sheep in the class, and I think you have a recipe for disaster. Especially when third grade is the year when all of the drama and cliques begin. So I worry, and I fret, and I think of how little children here get together to do things (parties, play dates, etc.) compared to when K was this age in the Lou.

Or maybe they just don’t want to deal with me or my kid?

I am always hoping that I’m doing right by him. I guess and second guess and over-analyze.  I want Ant to be Ant for all of his life, and never anything that someone else wants him to be—not his teachers, not his peers, not even me. He is one of the most unique and interesting people that I have ever met. The question, though, is how do I foster this? How do we, as parents, make this happen? How do we keep judgmental adults and immature children from stripping away who are children are from them, bit by bit?

Without becoming hermits, of course.

How do you deal with issues of popularity in your social life, and how has that impacted the way you deal with popularity in your school-aged children? And is there chance, ever, I will not feel awkward around others? Ugh!