A couple days ago, I was at a good friend's party. The topic du jour was about 'children'. As it evolved, I became aware of a new sense of foreboding. I saw an angle I had never seen before, something I realize will change our future fundamentally.
A little background. My good friend, the host, is married with two young (less than 5 years old) children. Most of our other friends at the party were also married, with young children. I was probably the only single guy.
The central element in the conversation was, as I call it, 'kid planning' - how can we provide the best facilities to our kids. One guy piped up, "I looked up this website recommended by my doctor - and we played different kinds of classical music for my wife when she was a few weeks from delivery. Supposedly the rhythm in fugues spurs analytical ability in the soon-to-be-newborn." This was my first shock.
"You must be kidding," I said.
"Nope," he said, without blinking, "the competition is thick - you want to make sure your child is near the top."
"Are you serious", I protested, " - the kid isn't EVEN born yet!"
"My kid learns the samisen. The instructor even throws in history lessons from time to time." This was friend # 2.
A general question arose, "what is a samisen?" Most of the others had kids learning violin, piano etc. Friend # 2 explains, "see, I read a Crimson-and-Gold bulletin that said the Ivies are on the lookout for unique talents. Being a piano/flute/viola/timpani is hardly distinguishing enough anymore. The samisen is a small Japanese instrument whose strings are plucked with a spatula. And my kid now also knows enough to conduct a full tea ceremony, followed with an authentic Ryukyuan!"
Nods of approval. Methinks, "But what if I liked to play the violin?"
Friend # 3 chimes in: "My kid broke the Kumon-C last week! And she's barely three! The instructor says she is the first kid to achieve this level so early. We're even considering skipping D and going straight to 'E'"
Methinks, "Won't she forget there's a D in the alphabet? I mean, she's 3!"
Wife of friend # 4 (who just walked in and overheard a little bit about the samisen): "My 10-Q kid recently upset the regional AGA champ in the under-15. And he's only 5! I am sure he will make shodan-2 before he's 10."
Methinks, "does your kid know how to stop, seeing as he's go-ing all the time? Else you may not be able to boast youngest driver's license you know."
And it went on and on. I slipped away and looked at the kids - in spectacles and braces - they were running around playing with each other, blissfully oblivious of their parents' grand designs. When it hit me.
The competition is thick. You want your kid to go to an Ivy because that's probably the last thing you can ever ask them to do. (Heck once they're out of college they're really gone.) But to put together a good application, not only do they need the usual valedictorian/salutatorian 97+ percentile, they also need this 'rounding'.
So what do you do to keep your kid in/ahead the race? You fill the mom with rhythm before the kid's born. You enroll the newborn in swimming and gymnastics. When she's 3, you start Kumon. When she's 4, you enroll her in at least five instruments, one from each continent. (You also inquire about the new stem-cell spawned libm graft program so she can play three instruments simultaneously.)
When she's 10, she volunteers
with the local SPED group. (But you know that she is secretly writing a paper
titled 'Harnessing autism to enhance analytical ability in toddlers'.) In
short, of 24 hours in a day, she's home only about 10 hours - about 8 of
them to sleep, and the rest to shower and eat. She's out at 6am, and back
only in time for dinner.
I take myself back in time. My childhood was pretty standard, not unlike any of my friends. I went to school, played kabbaddi and studied only a couple weeks before the exams. I didn't care for bagpipes, didn't read hieroglyphics and didn't write monographs on primates.
But kids today are different. They grow up knowing everything from Shakespeare to Britney Spears. And the parents only encourage it. And I ask myself. Are we bringing up kids or breeding racehorses? Well, no kids for me.
