Science Fair, Dance Performance and the Meddling Mom

C wants to be a scientist when he grows up. An astronaut.

He likes to talk about dwarf planets, the speed of light, black holes.

When he’s a grown up, he will spend six months of every year at the International Space Station and six months of the year on Earth, he warns us.

He is sad to announce that because of this grueling schedule, he may sometimes miss family events.

I understand.

So when the note goes out saying third graders can participate in this year’s school science fair, C is all over it. He and T devise an experiment about the bounceability (there’s a real word, but I can’t remember it) of different bouncy balls – how variables like mass and height affect the bounce. They spend the better part of a weekend in our basement measuring the bounces, creating graphs and writing a report. Lately C has been driving me bonkers with all his boundless and undirected energy, but this weekend he is at his very finest: focused, mission-driven, meticulous.

Every class has a chance to visit the science fair and after his day, he reports to me that his poster has not received any “compliments.” What’s a compliment? I ask. Little yellow sticky notes that kids put next to your poster saying “cool,” or “great job,” he says. He is matter-of-fact, but I can tell he is bothered, maybe fighting tears. We talk about the snow, football, what’s for dinner. T is on a work trip so I don’t have much energy to focus on anything for long.

On Friday I go to the school to see Z’s kindergarten dance performance, where he dances with gusto, attempting a plié, sneaking on the floor like a cat, twisting his body to make a shape he’s never made before – per the dance teacher’s instructions. When his teacher asks the class, “what’s an improvisation?” he raises his hand excitedly. (“It’s when we do the really cool stuff.”)

After, I wander into the multi-purpose room to see C’s crowning glory at the science fair. I come to a dead stop. He’s right. Other kids have piles, heaps, mounds of sticky notes of compliments (“I love it,” “awsum”), handwritten testaments to their scientific genius. And C has nothing. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. I peruse the fair, rows of tri-part posters about experiments with Coke and Mentos (do kids even eat Mentos any more?) and different states of matter. In the entire room of science fair posters and dioramas of jungles and tundras, his is the only project without a yellow sticky note proclaiming even a single “cool.” It is a black hole of compliments. A star caved in and did not allow the gravitational pull of compliments inside.

It is really sad.

I go home and stew. Do I meddle, or not meddle? I think back to my childhood: I hated when my parents meddled. I still remember the time in seventh grade, when there was the mock-Congress… and a certain other girl got to be the Congresswoman I wanted to be … and… I’ll spare you…

I can’t rescue my kids from the world, because they’re pretty privileged to begin with and it’s a cruel, mean place out there (good call on escaping to space six months each year). But this time seems different. Mostly, because I just feel really sad for my kid. And  because I assume there’s a responsible adult, or a dozen, in the room. After all, if kids are wandering around complimenting other kids an adult most certainly is coaching them, because in my experience children do not spontaneously regale each other with joyful-sounding yellow sticky notes.

I call T, and he says, “meddle.” I run into my neighbor, who says “meddle.”

They both make the point that other parents do much worse, which is a compelling argument when you are considering your own parenting tactics.

So I go back to school and present myself to the administrator I most know will exhibit compassion and plus, do something. I can’t believe this, but my throat starts to tighten up. I’m choking back tears: why can’t everyone just compliment each other all the time and why do we have to quantify our compliments, and, geez, why does this tiny injustice my child has suffered feel so emotional to me?

It will be fixed before tonight, she promises, when the parents and kids gather for the final science fair presentation.

Sure enough, C and T go to the science fair visit and C comes back exuberant. “I got a lot of compliments,” he says.

I bet, I say.

I’m glad I meddled, I tell T quietly. Yeah, he says, me too. Other parents do much worse, we agree.