Month: October 2015

Dream Medium?

Posted on by row20blog

As a general rule, the months following the birth of a first baby are not a great time for decision-making. It’s a foggy, hazy time, in which the focus is solely on survival – the baby’s and yours, in that order.

One of the more questionable decisions I made during that time was an ill-advised purchase of a wall decal from Zulily. It was a giant, intricately-designed rocket, with the words “DREAM BIG.” If you’ve ever hung one of those wall decals, you know how deceptively complicated that shit is. It requires a surprising amount of coordination and the use of both fine and gross motor skills. It took two parents and many curse words to get the thing hung.

It didn’t take long for me to get tired of looking at it, and eventually I painstakingly peeled it off, wearing down a thumbnail in the process. My husband, bless his heart, said very little when I took it down, considering what a pain in the ass it had been to put it up.

The biggest reason I grew to dislike it, aside from my mom’s suggestion that its diagrammatic design looked like something out of a Cold War-era brainwashing experiment, was the words “DREAM BIG.” It seemed like such a big request of such a little guy. Of course my son could not read it, but I could, and I decided that wasn’t really a message I wanted to send as a parent.

Scrolling through design websites and flipping through parenting magazines, we see examples of this everywhere. “The sky’s the limit.” “Aim high.” “Reach for the stars.” (By now it should be evident that we went with an “air and space” theme for our son’s room.) They are intended to be inspirational. We want to instill in our children a sense that they can be anything they want, if they “dream big.” By hanging these signs, posters and decals in their rooms, we are encouraging them to be their best selves. Aren’t we?

I’m not so sure now. Are we inadvertently asking too much? Setting up unreasonable expectations? Sending a message that “big” is the only acceptable way to dream? Is it okay to dream medium?

Where is the line between empowering our children to believe in themselves, and setting them up to be dissatisfied? What does success look like? Who defines greatness? How big is big enough? How do we strike a balance in the messages we send our children – and ourselves – about achievement?

After my first blog post, I received a stunning number of messages from people saying “Me, too!” I am not the only one who feels like I fall short of the mark, whatever the mark is. It was really something to discover I am not alone.

Much has been written about women and the idea of “having it all.” I’m not talking about that. If you want to read about that, Ann Marie Slaughter says it better than I ever could. I’m talking a different, but tangentially related, phenomenon. So many of us grew up believing we were supposed to do great things with our lives. I don’t know why we seem to feel that way. I do know it’s not just limited to women. I’ve heard from men, too.

I don’t have the answer to this. I’m working on it. In the meantime, there is only one sign in my son’s room now. It is a quote attributed to Babe Ruth:

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

And that’s where I am now.

Batter up.

Gifted Underachiever

Posted on by row20blog

A recurring theme in my life is “Allison is not realizing her full potential.” It’s been a constant refrain for as long as I can remember. From teachers to bosses, I’ve heard it over and over and over.

When I was in the sixth grade, “they” put me in a pilot program for “Gifted Underachievers.” A well-intentioned specialist would come to my school once a week, and earnestly act as a go-between for me, my teachers who resented me for being high-maintenance, and my parents. She was a very nice lady and she tried hard, but I was no less an underachiever when she finished with me than when she started.

I have been told I’m smart. Empirically, it’s true. It has to be. I was tested in three separate states and they all came to the same conclusion. Gifted. They can’t all be wrong, can they?

But here I am, pushing 40, looking around at my life and asking the same question I’ve been asking since sometime around the second grade – “Gifted at what, exactly?”

My friends and family have been subjected to my endless speculations and ramblings about what I’m supposed to be when I grow up. And I have come to the hard truth that I am really good at two things: talking and making party favors for kids’ birthdays. Those are the things I love to do more than anything else. One of my friends says I’m good at helping people, which is true to an extent. I like helping people and I like feeling useful. I have empathy in abundance. Unfortunately, I lack patience with people. Also, I’m pretty much worthless when it comes to paperwork and documentation. So that effectively eliminates the fields of counseling, social work and teaching. I’m terrible at science, so coupled with the lack of patience thing…no to anything in the health care field.

Back to talking and the kids party favors. I’ve never considered either as a serious career possibility. I’ve always thought the former necessitated a certain amount of narcissism, which I find distasteful. The latter is just not a realistic way to make a living. People who are like me and truly enjoy making party favors can get on Pinterest just the same as I can. I suppose I could do favor bags for weddings and corporations, but the only thing I’d enjoy less than a corporation is a bride. Brides are awful. I know – I’ve been one.

Speaking of being a bride, I don’t know how many times my mother said to me over the years “The thing that is most appealing about someone in the beginning turns out the be the biggest challenge in the long run.” As is typically the case, she was right. In college, I met a boy. He was driven and had absolute confidence in his own abilities. Nearly twenty years later, we’ve been married almost fifteen years. He is every bit as driven as he ever was, and still absolutely confident in his abilities. He found his life’s work very early, and is successful. He has an uncanny ability to see how things are supposed to work. This is extremely difficult for someone like me, because – to mix metaphors – he’s already seeing the end game and I can’t see the forest for the trees. Nothing will make you feel more like an underachiever than living with an overachiever.

I was driving home recently, reflecting on my lack of professional success, compared to my “potential.” I’ve always thought my husband was just more driven, or had more passion. To a certain extent, that’s true. But the crucial difference isn’t what he has that I don’t – it’s what I have that he doesn’t. Fear. That guy is fucking fearless. He is relentless, and he puts himself out there. He has never been afraid that people won’t like him – and many don’t – but by any measure, he is a success. He has a thriving business, a family that is crazy about him, and friends who are fiercely loyal. I, on the other hand, have always been governed by anxiety and worry. I often self-censor because I worry about what other people think. He has elephant hide, and my skin is paper-thin.

So, as I approach my 40th year, I resolve to be brave. To say what I think. To tell my stories. Maybe that’s my purpose…to share my fuck-ups (they are many) and my victories (they are also many), so you can feel less alone or, at the very least, regard me as a cautionary tale and learn from my mistakes.