I have a student that has every material advantage in the world. He lacks for nothing. He lives in a house in the country club neighborhood. His parents give him everything he wants. However, they’ve given him something else, too…their haughtiness and disdain for the rest of the world.
I have never met a more sullen little boy, jaded at the ripe old age of 5. If you listen to him talk to his peers, you will discover that his favorite word is “boring.” Everything is BOOORRRING.
He has a classmate who, frankly, is a mess most of the time. He’s often neglected by his parents, not to the point of abuse, but almost. His parents also live in the same country club neighborhood, and usually they just can’t be bothered with the hard work of parenting their son. Their parenting “job” is a little harder than some because their child is autistic, a fact with which they can’t quite reconcile themselves.
Anyhow, because they live in the same neighborhood and attend the same social functions there, they are an unlikely pair of friends. I say “unlikely” because in many ways they are the opposite of each other. While one is bored by the world, the other takes an almost exaggerated delight in the simplest of things. This other child also has a big, big heart and a generous temperament, and because of that, I gave him the Character Award for our class this month. When the sullen student found out, he protested, “Why did HE get the award?”
“Because he is kind and caring and has a smile on his face every day, and he always says ‘Good morning!’ cheerfully when he arrives at our class,” I replied to the child who never returns my greetings at the classroom door each morning and who always looks as though he’s just sucked on a lemon.
One day, this miserable little fellow’s grandmother volunteered to be our “Mystery Reader.” I spotted her from the playground where we were having recess as she made her way from the parking lot up to the front door of the school. I knew who she was instantly, because her daughter, my student’s mother, looks a lot like her. She arrived with a book in her hand, not just to read to our class but also to donate to our class library.
I brought the class in from recess, and as I introduced myself to her, I chatted with her briefly and discovered she had come for a visit all the way from the opposite coast. After the children had settled down on the rug, I introduced her to the rest of the class, mentioning that she was their classmate’s grandmother.
As I did so, their sullen little classmate sneered, “She’s not my REAL grandmother. My REAL grandmother is my Grandma Russell,” his father’s mother. I was absolutely flabbergasted. I glanced up quickly at the woman’s face, but she showed no signs of a reaction. If she was hurt by her grandson’s words, she took great care not to show it. If I were his grandmother, I would have been hurt beyond measure. To recover from his gaff, I think I stumbled through an explanation that what I’m sure he meant to say was that he didn’t get to see this grandmother as much as he did his Grandma Russell because this grandmother lived so very far away, but that we were all lucky to have at least two grandmothers, one who was our mother’s mom and one who was our father’s and that no matter how often we did or didn’t get to see them, they were both still our grandmothers and very much loved.
I was so embarrassed for this grandmother and her grandson. I had heard him be hateful to his classmates before, but I never dreamed he would actually say such an awful thing to a member of his own family. I wonder what his parents’ response would be if they knew. Would they even care? Would they even see anything wrong with it? Do you, dear reader, wonder why I’m making such a big deal of this, or are you as repulsed by this child’s behavior as I am?
In any case, that, young man, since you were wondering, is why you will NEVER earn the Character Award. You have so much, but you have so little of what really matters.