"End Petty Bickering: My Kid's Smartest"

Peachtree City is about children. Upon moving to Peachtree City 5 years ago, my wife Julie and I were given the standard, city-issue mini van and our instructions for procreation. Then, on the verge of banishment 22 months ago, we had Olivia. Our lives have been forever changed. Not just because of bringing a child into the world though, but upon having Olivia, we were automatically entered into one of the largest secret contests known to man; the "My Child is Smarter Than Yours" competition. History will look back at these times as the Fisher-Price wars.



I doubt that Peachtree City is different from most places in this regard, though we do have pregnant mother parking spaces right alongside our handicap ones (some would debate that handicapped in Peachtree City is not being able to name 3 kids from the Barney Show). Very subtley we are all in this battle to show our child as the smartest.

All of a sudden, IQ's or test scores or grades have become the measuring stick on the value of children. The saddest part of this trend is that it is not based on potential, as much as it is based on comparison. This could be Forrest Gump backlash or it could be Darwinian in an effort to rise as "fittest." Only, I doubt Darwin imagined computer camps for 3 years olds when he was proposing his evolution theories based on observations that some lizards had learned how to order pizza from Dominoes or something like that.

Nevertheless, on two fronts, I hope to give relief to any of you feeling this afore- mentioned stress: #1. Remember, all children have immense value no matter how they match up with others intellectually, and #2. It is futile to be anxious about these issues, as my daughter Olivia is by far the brightest child on this earth anyway.

We all have to constantly remind ourselves that children are a gift and that they are wonderfully different and wonderfully made. We have to make it a discipline to see beyond just brain power and processing skill, no matter how much our next door neighbor or our community tries to induce this competitiveness.

Yet, I can also relate to the worries of wondering if your child is as smart as the others around them. I can get rather frustrated with my almost 2 year old daughter when she does really dumb things like, not knowing which shoe goes on which foot or when she responds on Jeopardy without putting her answer in the form of a question.

Nurturing and loving should be our main concern as parents; being proud of the sacrifices we make for our children and letting their mental growth and accomplishment simply be a side to that. I seek to provide learning opportunities for Olivia so she feels that I care for her, not selfishly so I can brag that she deciphered and rewired the schematic on our cable box, so that nothing plays on our television except Court TV. Ok, so she likes Johnny Cochran.

So, I say let's stop the competition. Let's quit prompting our kids to recite the alphahbet in the checkout line at Kroger... If you give up making your child tell me his age, or tell me his Teddy Bear's name, I will stop asking Olivia to convert your name into computer binary code or Egyptian hieroglyphics... this is all so silly.

I hope and believe we all love our children no matter what their IQ's. So why are we subconsciously teaching them we believe in conditional love; that we might love them more if they were smarter. Would I love Olivia any less if she couldn't name all the presidents in alphabetical order or by height? I think sometimes it is we as parents who need to smarten up.

Billy Murphy - 7/14/97