Third Grade Woes

Yesterday Oskar was playing with a fellow third-grader.  Knowing they had recently studied Roman history, I pointed out to them that it was the anniversary of the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.  Oskar's friend said, "Wait, that's a guy?  Up until now I thought it was a girl."  I chuckled but realized he had a lot of reasons to think that.  We always see Caesar depicted wearing a robe and with a laurel around his head.  And the average little boy probably isn't encountering the name "Julius" too often in his everyday life.

While I'm on the topic of little boy, perhaps fellow moms-of-boys can relate to this conversation I was having with my son.  I was trying to convince him that as soon as you feel the urge to pee, you should go do it.  (Um, yes, this kid is nearly ten and we're still having this conversation.)  But this is when I discovered that there was more to the tale.  He told me that XYZ Friend had told him not to go to the bathroom so much.  Wait...what?  I said, "Why on earth would he tell you that?!"  So he explained that he had confided to his friend that he doesn't think he's very cool at school. This friend is older so of course Oskar puts incredible weight in everything he says.  This is the advice his friend had for him, "Don't go to the bathroom so much."  I asked Oskar if he's been going to the bathroom a lot at school (because he sure doesn't at home).  It didn't sound like that was a particularly frequent occurrence for him.  But I guess his friend just thought that was the solution to life's problems. I'm still baffled by it.     

I tried to convince Oskar that that was terrible advice and that it's definitely NOT cool to be doing the potty dance at school...or worse. 

Meanwhile, I feel sad for him that he feels out of place with his peers.  I feel his pain...or at least I did back in third grade.  I remember struggling to fit in too.  I had always been so confident that if *I* had kids, I could spare them all the misery and suffering that I had gone through. But now that I do have kids, I've learned that it's not quite that simple.  Oskar's a really smart kid who seems to be interested in things many of his peers could care less about.  It seems to me that it's awfully hard to be smart and cool.  There are certainly plenty of kids who pull it off but I've known more who have struggled in their youth. Fortunately, by the time you become an adult, being smart is generally considered super cool...at least by all the other smart people.  *hehe*