(no subject)
This is why I hate dealing with little kids. I cannot give them the binary that they seem to desire. It's so hard to tell them that there is this enormous grey area that separates the white and the black. Here, even the grey goes from charcoal grey to pale silvery-white. But no- it's all too easy to deny the grey and accept only the extremes.
Out of all the odd questions they ask every week, they asked if I had a boyfriend. I said no. They asked why I didn't have one. I told them that there wasn't any particular reason- I just don't, and come on, please do your questions now. You have ten minutes left for your comprehension. Hurry up.
They went on to say that I should have a boyfriend, because I'm twenty, and people get married in their early twenties, don't they? And then they have kids before they hit thirty. And so the cycle goes on.
I think I'm vaguely horrified. But they're eleven, twelve- I don't know why I expect them not to think that way, because children do, don't they? They expect the world to go a certain way because that's how they've been taught, that's how their parents experienced the world and so they think the world goes on like that. Clockwork.
Grow, marry, give birth, retire, die. Be somewhat religious so that you won't go to hell. Be normal and straight, so that you fit nicely into the 'traditional' perception of the world. Be part of the working force, preferably in the civil sector. Don't do art because it does not afford you enough money to even live.
I think it's a little sad that I see their parents in them. Of course, I don't know the parents, but I've heard these voices before, from different people. It stinks. I do not need to hear their refrains of being normal and decent from every other mouth. And anyway, why do you all want kids? Are children something you really want, or are children just something you expect from life? The earth is getting overpopulated as it is, why do you keep on taxing the earth's resources with 255 babies every minute? I am not going to contribute to that number, I refuse to become part of that particular statistic.
Some little part of me wonders sometimes- if they know that their teacher is a bigender bisexual who might not have a boyfriend but a girlfriend, or at least, in the future, when their parents stop imprinting themselves so heavily onto them, will it change anything? I can't see at all that it matters, but right now, they cannot even accept that there are such people as homosexuals, that there are people who do not view marriage as a sanctified thing, and that there are people who do not want children. It annoys me. A lot. They're only upper primary students.
Next year, I'm definitely sticking to secondary school students. At least they don't expect me to give answers beyond what Duncan thinks of Lellie the Martian.
Out of all the odd questions they ask every week, they asked if I had a boyfriend. I said no. They asked why I didn't have one. I told them that there wasn't any particular reason- I just don't, and come on, please do your questions now. You have ten minutes left for your comprehension. Hurry up.
They went on to say that I should have a boyfriend, because I'm twenty, and people get married in their early twenties, don't they? And then they have kids before they hit thirty. And so the cycle goes on.
I think I'm vaguely horrified. But they're eleven, twelve- I don't know why I expect them not to think that way, because children do, don't they? They expect the world to go a certain way because that's how they've been taught, that's how their parents experienced the world and so they think the world goes on like that. Clockwork.
Grow, marry, give birth, retire, die. Be somewhat religious so that you won't go to hell. Be normal and straight, so that you fit nicely into the 'traditional' perception of the world. Be part of the working force, preferably in the civil sector. Don't do art because it does not afford you enough money to even live.
I think it's a little sad that I see their parents in them. Of course, I don't know the parents, but I've heard these voices before, from different people. It stinks. I do not need to hear their refrains of being normal and decent from every other mouth. And anyway, why do you all want kids? Are children something you really want, or are children just something you expect from life? The earth is getting overpopulated as it is, why do you keep on taxing the earth's resources with 255 babies every minute? I am not going to contribute to that number, I refuse to become part of that particular statistic.
Some little part of me wonders sometimes- if they know that their teacher is a bigender bisexual who might not have a boyfriend but a girlfriend, or at least, in the future, when their parents stop imprinting themselves so heavily onto them, will it change anything? I can't see at all that it matters, but right now, they cannot even accept that there are such people as homosexuals, that there are people who do not view marriage as a sanctified thing, and that there are people who do not want children. It annoys me. A lot. They're only upper primary students.
Next year, I'm definitely sticking to secondary school students. At least they don't expect me to give answers beyond what Duncan thinks of Lellie the Martian.