I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
July 5, 2008
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My four-year-old, Punky, isn’t quite like most of the other kids her age. She spends a good part of each day pretending to be a giraffe. She insists on watching Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving Special each night before bed. She loves doing interpretive dances to the soundtrack from Zorba the Greek.
I know what you’re thinking. She’s a little… well… weird. And you know what? I absolutely love it.
I suspect I may have been weird, too, when I was little, but growing up in a traditional Southern town, I quickly learned the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Little girls didn’t spend hours memorizing their brother’s Boy Scout Handbook while he was at school; They played with Barbie dolls. Little girls didn’t sit in the neighbor’s cherry tree and eat from it until they felt sick; They asked their mothers to make them a sandwich, and they were sure to tell her ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you.’ Each time I strayed from my town’s idea of normalcy, I was quickly steered back into place.
As a result, I was the cheerleader who hated cheering and later, the sorority girl who hated wearing those stupid letters. Never able to entirely hide my weird side, I ended up always being the one in the popular group who was a little bit “different.” It’s a sucky position to hold and a lonely one (as glamorized as it is in movies and on TV), and looking back I wish I’d had more of a backbone and done more of what I wanted to do and less of what I thought was expected of me.
Because now? Most of the kids who grew up doing all the “normal” things are pretty damn boring. They’re leading normal lives in normal subdivisions, wearing normal clothes and bearing more normal children.
The weirdos, on the other hand, are artists and entrepreneurs. They’re actors and inventors. They’re dreamers. In some cases, they’re wildly successful. In every case, they’re interesting. They’re the ones you want to talk to at cocktail parties and reunions.
Of course I want Punky to make friends easily. But I also want her to know that the things that set her apart from the rest of the kids, the things that will probably make some of them call her “weird” someday, are the very things that make her special and unique, a hidden diamond in a cave full of dull, gray rocks.
This post originally appeared on Parents.com.
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