Stuff I Know

Like most adults I suppose, I know a small amount about a wide variety of topics. Not enough to sustain a conversation with another adult who knows more, but enough, most of the time, to still be ahead of my third-grader.

Having kids gives you a skewed view of how good you are at things because, let's face it, they kinda suck at everything. At first anyway. I used to play soccer against Thomas when he was little and think, "Oh yeah, I still got it." I was seriously impressed with how much I remembered from playing soccer for--count them--ONE season as an eight-year-old (back in Tremonton they had a single league and just mixed the girls, what few of us there were, in with the boys at the age when cooties are considered real and so my one and only soccer team picture involves me and the boy next to me standing strategically apart to avoid contracting one another's gender). I'm like, kick with the inside of the sole. And...actually that's all I remember. But it was enough to put me over the top.

Thomas is eight now and he is way better than me. I'm convinced I've lost the ability to dodge with age, but it's probably true that I never had the ability in the first place. Plus, I get tired after about two minutes. Also, I can't run.

But I played soccer against Seth the other day and completely forgot about getting schooled by Thomas. I was hammering them past the little guy into our small backyard net and thinking, Oh yeah, I still got it. Kick with the inside of the sole! Sad, really.

But one thing I feel pretty good about is my math and science bonafides. Much as I didn't especially like math growing up, I took a lot of classes and then got tricked into taking even more when I signed up for a comp sci major not realizing math would be involved. And I've always enjoying random science tidbits, so even though I haven't had a science class in years, I still love to watch NOVA documentaries with the kids and talk about bacteria, atoms, the elements, robots, cells--you name it.

And I love to find out what Thomas is learning in class because I am a blowhard and can expound on topics with which I have only a little depth--because he is a third-grader and he doesn't know yet how much I am making up while thinking, That sounds about right. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.


Each week, Thomas gets a reading passage for language arts which he must practice each night for fluency. Last week it was about how snow is great and all, but blizzards aren't safe, so get inside people. This week's is about Mars.

I was bumping comfortably along with Thomas and his Mars passage until he got to this sentence, "People think that Mars was once like Earth."

I started huh-huh-ing. "Uh yeah, that's not right."

We'll get back to my supposed knowledge in a second--but it's just not fair to tell children at this age that sometimes things they bring home from school might not be right. Most children have an uncomplicated worldview of "right things" and "wrong things" with no Venn diagram showing a union between the sets and reasonably so. There's plenty of time to add shades of gray over the years. Why make them cynical and despondent this early? And frankly, this is the place that you are telling them they have to go from now until forever (which is how far away eighteen feels) because it is important and they are learneding and something from school is WRONG? Save it for big stuff.

So of course, rather than pointing out it was a just a reading fluency passage and he didn't need to even understand it, he just needed to read it and who cares how right or wrong it is, he argued with me. It's from my teacher, it is about Mars which is an important subject that I'm sure they would not screw up, and you have never been to Mars what do you know about it anyway?


Not wanting to endanger my scientician cred, I immediately countered with "Well, just because someone wrote it on a piece of paper, doesn't make it true." and I used big words like atmosphere and iron oxide while thinking the entire time, Oh crap. It has been awhile since I learned anything about Mars. What if there is new research? Did they find bacteria? Actual water? What do I know?


In my mind, I was imagining poor Thomas returning to school and telling his teacher, loudly, in front of the whole class, "My mom says this isn't true and my mom knows everything! Well, at least, it seems like she knows a lot from my limited understanding as a third-grader!" Or some such. And then the class laughs because the Mars rover discovered dinosaur fossils on Mars and I didn't read about it but everyone else did and their parents told them and I've caused a great humiliation to come upon my poor child because I am a blowhard! Also, he gets detention. Parent FAIL.

So while he was doing his math homework, I went to Wikipedia (natch) and read all about Mars. Turns out they have discovered that it might be possible for Mars to occasionally have liquid water, but still have no proof of even limited lifeforms. Ha! I am still a scientician!

Now Thomas's brain immediately replaces anything homework related with Star Wars the moment the homework has passed out of his hands, so he didn't care anymore, but it was important to me to go back and reiterate to him that there was no indication whatsoever that Mars had ever been Earth-like, even though it appears to have some water (in ice and gaseous forms mostly, with occasional liquid), and they are still looking for signs of life. He was grumpy because, 1) I'm still making him talk about homework and 2) I'm still pointing out my own rightness, even though by then I was just trying to clarify so he didn't announce anything embarrassing to his teacher and make us both look bad. I got to use big words again like sublimate and sedimentary deposits. He got to stare hopelessly at the ceiling until I got all the blowharding out of my system.

Just like my imagined soccer prowess, I have to admit that I still think, "I will continue to know more than my child, even as he gets older," and I haven't yet been disabused of the idea. The day will come. But maybe not until they find dinosaur fossils on Mars.

Maybe it will be Thomas that finds them. He will call me on his ansible and say "Ha!"