This piece is a response to Louise Gillet’s So, How Can I Tell If My Kids Are Weird? [see link below] in which she is responding to parent calling their kids “weird”.
There are no weird kids
There are no weird kids – what is weird is growing up in a world where adults call kids – especially their own kids -names like “weird”.
I’ve been called “weird” a lot – especially when I was young. It used to hurt – a lot.
Nowadays I realize that when someone says to me:
“you’re weird”
It just means :
“you’re really not like me”
so I say:
“thank you”.
Weird is just:
Wired: differently.
– and we all are: wired differently. If you’re not weird then you’re either boring – or else dead.
When it comes to children and weird, Hunter S Thompson had it about right:
“Weird behaviour is natural in smart children, like curiosity is to a kitten.”
…and it’s worth highlighting and emphasizing and even labouring over how he talks of weird behaviour, not the kids.
We are all weird
Seth Godin predicted the future of marketing relies on recognizing that “we are all weird now” and wrote a book about embracing weird.
We Are All Weird: The Myth of Mass and The End of Compliance.
.
.
Nietzsche showed us where “weird” really resides:
Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
Weirdness and madness reside not in individuals – and certainly not in children – but in the absurd norms of a world created by so called grown-ups.
The language we use to describe others always will say much more about us that it can possibly say about them.
So when we call kids “weird” what does that say of us?
– especially when all they are doing is responding to the environment we have created for them.
Who wants to live in a boring world?
Who wants to live their life conforming to someone else’s narrow-minded idea of what is not weird?
Want to get a life?
-get your weird on.
K.H.
This came to me whilst reading Louise Gillet’s piece at her blog : So, How Can I Tell If My Kids Are Weird? [and also published at Hufington Post].
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- Reality – much weirder than anyone’s imagination https://recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/reality-much-weirder-than-anyones-imagination/
- How society drives us mad https://recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/why-society-makes-us-mad-richard-bentall/
- Trouble and Toast https://recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/trouble-and-toast/