April 2010

When I was picked to write Breeders, I gotta say, it felt like an ambush. I'm the proud father of a 9 year-old girl, who popped into my life unexpectedly when I was a ripe 46. I had spent a lifetime jealously guarding my freedom when the hilarious hand of god appeared. This also felt like an ambush.

I invoke this history to confirm my utter lack of "contemporary" qualifications, regarding the writing of this column or for that matter, the raising of this child. I do bring one thing however: an uncompromising adoration of her vulnerable soul. Perhaps this is enough.

My dearest prodigy is the proud inheritor of a learning disability that has plagued her father's side of the family for generations, taking various forms. She pronounces it "DY-LEX-IA" (animals are "aminals", bananas are "beannas"). Needless to say, she and we have suffered through the obligatory tests, parent-teacher conferences, general frustrations, invasive opinions, and shallow, unpoetic assumptions.

The school's shrink strongly recommended a well-known stimulant to bring her "up to speed" so to say. I told him that I liked her the way she was and that I was largely unimpressed with the product they were graduating. I thought to myself, that the problem was, in part, that my daughter had skipped two generations of urbanization. She might pronounce it "banalization."

I suggested, that when I was in school, we had a full hour of organized sports-they called it "physical education"-and that it had a calming effect on naturally energetic children.  It's important to mention that American children were being physically trained to be better cold warriors; after all we had the Chinese and the Russians to defeat. We still do.

I was told that there are two hours of organized games per week and that was deemed sufficient. I told them that I was able to take two hours of art and or music class a day and that had helped me to digest the dry left brain fare that seems to be the darling of the educators. There is neither time nor money for art and music class these days. Imagine my surprise. I had to appreciate the logic of the popular stimulant; it not only calmed the mind, but helped to combat obesity as well.

In all fairness, it's important to look at the good ole days honestly. In cases of legitimate attention deficit disorder, a student was targeted as lazy and just not paying attention. Dyslexia was unrecognized and both disorders were considered character disorders with the attendant punishments.

Educators today are far more tolerant, and do have better insights into disabilities than ever before. Parents, as always, must be vigilant to "cure-all" medications, while realizing that those same medications can be truly miraculous in the right situation, proving a god-send to children who need them.

Make no mistake, I want my child to get an education even though the educational goals of the age are essentially the same throughout the world: a billion Chinese, sitting in front of the same computers that a billion Hindus are sitting in front of-a monoculture being as close to utopia as we can come.

I hope my daughter will have a rugged sense of humor, because she's gonna need it; the ability to assess a situation, seeing the dangers and opportunities therein; the ability to change a tire and read a tape measure; the will to create her life moment to moment; and that she possess the spiritual strength to love the truth.

My daughter's challenges might result in rare gifts, if she doesn't consider herself a victim. Fostered individualities have always been the stuff of American enterprise and unmatched creativity.

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