My 8 year old son proclaims loud and proud "I am a GEEK!" He knows his dad is a geek (officially GeekDad). He knew his mom was a Geek even before I knew, I denied my geek mom status too long!
Friends and family members have expressed concern that his pride at being a memb
er of the Geek tribe will draw trouble, bullies, and teasing.My question is this:
Should I discourage him from proclaiming his Geekness?
Honestly the status of the geek label has changed since we were kids. Geeks rule the world! They keep all our technology toys and tools running. Even Barack Obama is a geek!
We are not just Geeks in this family. We have other hard to explain identities as well. The kids and I are Unitarian Universalists. My husband is an Atheist, who was raised in a Jewish household. I was raised as a Catholic. We are an interfaith family to the max. Does discouraging him to feel true to his self identity send the message that we shouldn't be the people we want to be just because other people disagree. Let's be honest, this is the root of so much teenage angst!
You know what? I never would want my kid to feel bad about who or what he wants to be. So I'm gonna let him be our fabulous, wonderful geekling!
What do you think? What would you do?
1 comment:
I'm a little biased here, but I agree with letting him be himself. If he identifies with his geeky parents, all the better. To me, that's much better than having famous people that really aren't that great as role models, or something like that. Geeks tend to admire people like scientists, and that's always a good thing. =)
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