Normal

“Why do they call it the glove compartment? You don’t put your gloves in there.”

Guess who said this. A young child? Maybe a nosy adolescent girl? How about a musical genius teenage guy?

If you guessed the last answer, you are correct! Here is your prize! (handing you a million dollars)

I don’t know, he just suddenly comes out with these things at 11:30 at night. Now he’s playing some beautiful piano piece that I know but can’t name on his six foot Yamaha grand piano.

I met a young mom today and her young son. At three he’s reading and knows three languages. He talks your ear off and he’s so brilliant and entertaining that you don’t mind at all. And talk about cute! But I feel for this mom. Having a genius is so enormously difficult, you can’t imagine. She doesn’t know this yet. Maybe I should have told her…but she wouldn’t believe me anyway. I made the same mistake.

But doesn’t everyone want a genius child? Uhm, I hope not. Each genius comes with a set of difficulties that can range from a speech impediment to bipolar. Genius doesn’t come without a cost.

I have raised the latter of these scenarios. He also was reading at three. He used to read the newspaper before going to kindergarten. School was so boring for him that the teacher could not give him enough workbooks to keep him busy while the other mere mortal students caught up with him. He got into trouble and I took him out. As in homeschooled him.

At home he practically exploded intellectually, and actually did end up exploding emotionally. Having the curse of being firstborn, I wonder that he turned out as well as he did, but to do it again I wouldn’t have listened to so many doctors. They generally don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to psychiatric conditions.

My son managed to become a Linux expert, and I mean expert, but he suffers horribly. I wish he was normally stupid like the rest of us.

My youngest is still playing his piano. The other day he had a meltdown. A nasty one. So bad blood actually spurted from his nose. I’m still tired from it, but he’s pretty much recovered.

Okay, now this piece I recognize as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy symphony. Such beautiful music I get to enjoy. But I wish he was normally stupid like the rest of us.

I don’t understand why parents want their kids to be so smart. It’s not that important. Normal is better. No, normal is beautiful, healthy and productive. I like normal.