Kanna, do you want to try spelling bee?”
“B-E.”
“No, no. Not that be.”
“Ok. B-E-E.”
“See, excellent start. Now, spell bewusstseinslage.”
I’m not an overly ambitious mother. In fact, I’m ready to hand out the ‘Good job, Buddy!’ stickers if my kids brush their teeth before they leave for school. I’m sloth mom, the exact opposite of tiger mom.
Every year, when the circulars are sent out regarding Olympiads, Juniorpreneur contests and painting competitions, I’ll mumble “So, you want to sign up?”. The children hear this as ‘Do you have sinuses’ and say ‘No’. We then move on to the more important things in life like brushing teeth before leaving for school. I’m always relieved they don’t say yes, because a) sinuses are awful b) this way I don’t have to teach them more stuff. And c) Hello, there are teeth that need brushing.
But then, every once in a while, I question my choices, also known as my laziness as a parent. Shouldn’t I be pushing my children to excel? Providing them opportunities to discover how great they are at solving esoteric math problems and spelling archaic words? I usually feel this way when there’s a headline about some amazing, child genius designing sustainable homes for life on Mars. Or when some Indian kid wins the Scripps Spelling Bee.
When the news broke that Karthik Nemmani, 14, from McKinney, Texas, won this years spelling bee everyone was super excited. And by everyone,
I mean my dad who read the article out to me. There was a brief silence afterwards, which I took to be subtle judgement of my parenting skills, but in hindsight there was probably a lull in the conversation because my dad was looking up what Koinonia, the word that won Nemmani the championship meant.
Instead of just carrying on as a sloth mother, I felt a faint stirring of tigerish-ness within. ‘My children too will know the Greek word meaning Christian fellowship or communion.’ This was easier said than done.
Me: “Spell exoskeleton.”
10-year-old: “Why?”
Me: “To expand your mind!”
10 year old: “Then it won’t fit in my head anymore.”
Me: “Just spell the damn word.”
7-year-old: “But why do we need to learn how to spell big words? Isn’t that what dictionaries are for?”
10-year-old: “Bro, you don’t even need a dictionary. The wavy red line comes when you type and that will tell you you’ve made a mistake.”
7-year-old: “Oh yeah. And like, when you’re texting the phone only gives you word options. Amma makes a lot of mistakes. I have seen her type some weird stuff.”
10-year-old: “Amma, may be you should practice for spelling bee. Our spelling is pretty good.”
Me: “You had three different spellings of the word computer in your homework last week.”
10-year-old: “You’re the one who said my answers should have variety.”
Let the record state that I tried. My children clearly do not have an innate desire to do amazing things which I can then humbly brag about.
And, in case you’re wondering, bewusstseinslage is a German word that means “a state of consciousness or a feeling devoid of sensory components”. No, I don’t know how to pronounce it.
Menaka Raman
Twitter@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me