Somewhere Between Lofty and Lowly

If you’ve been around kids for any length of time, you know their perception of reality can be a bit askew.  Those altered perceptions are often aimed at the adults around them.  For instance, toddlers tend to think their parents pull the moon out of their back pockets and hang it, just perfect, every night.  To them, we are heroes.  Teenagers, on the other hand, are legitimately surprised their parents made it in from the rain during a thunderstorm.  In fact, the idea that we can even use the restroom properly seems dubious.  In their eyes, we are a caricature, some sort of Sunday comic strip that parrots the same phrases again and again, occasionally drooling in the process.

I have the privilege of working with young people every day and a recent event only served to solidify my observations on the depth of their misconception.  A third grader was holding out for my help on a homework assignment.  Now, I say he was holding out because there were two very intelligent teachers trying to help him.  Why was I so important, you might ask?  Well, one teacher trying to help teaches 1^st grade and the other 2^nd grade.  He was doing 3^rd grade work and was convinced they wouldn’t know how to do his lesson, but an 8^th grade teacher should know.  Kids.

Through the eyes of young people, we either hang the moon, have toilet paper stuck to our shoes, or in my case, know as much as an 8^th grader which is, I must admit, a somewhat disturbing thought.  The truth is we fall somewhere between the lofty and lowly perceptions our youth have of us.  You might say we can hang the moon, in the rain, but we might smash our thumb and fall off the ladder in the process, doing the entire job with toilet paper proudly stuck to our shoe.