As I’ve written, I enjoy the differences between my daughters and me. I’m even learning to enjoy outspokenness, extraversion and being a sports nut, all foreign to my own experience and leanings.
But we probably all have some biases, don’t we? I know I really, really hope my kids will attend a four-year liberal-arts college like my husband and I did. I really don’t care what they do after that. (Actually, in this economy, I’m encouraging my oldest to learn plumbing and drywall. )
But there is something else, something which seems to symbolize everything that I was not, every hurt I received in junior high and high school, everything my friends and I disdained as shallow.
And I think it may be in my family’s future.
You see, the thought has now occurred to me: what if (gasp!) my daughter wants to be a….cheerleader?!?
At my high school, several of the cheerleaders were actually honors students, of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and relatively nice, not the haughty blonde bimbos sometimes portrayed in the media. Still, they were the “in” group and everyone knew it. My friends and I felt superior to that sort of shallowness. I don’t get the whole cheerleading mystique. I definitely do not understand the parents in Michelle’s blog about a ban on cheerleaders’ miniskirts in class.
Can I get over my bias? I admit, cheerleading is good exercise. It would make good use of my daughter’s terrific sense of rhythm, her love of music, her enthusiasm, her leadership skills.
I am almost relieved, though, to find some logical reasons for opposing her participation: cheerleading, believe it or not, is considered one of America’s most dangerous sports.
Adoptive parents are called to stretch themselves to deal with temperaments that may come from birthfamily. (Of course, adopted children often share interests and personalities with their adoptive parents, and non-adoptive families also experience a diversity of temperaments.)
How much of a stretch can our psyches take before we get that, “I can’t believe this/my brain is going to explode” type of feeling?
We’ll see.
Please see these related blogs:
How Much is Genes; How Much is Environment?
Potentially Dangerous Fitness Choices