what “impressionable” means

[sophiaserpentia]

Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.

This morning i had a jarring, chilling exposure to what the word “impressionable” really means.

My wife and i had to go to her son’s school this morning to deal with, well, the kinds of things kids do. All we knew was that the principal wanted to talk to her. I went along as moral support. We didn’t know they were going to drag her son into the room with us so that he could sit on one side of the room with four adults looking at him asking him about what happened. We had no idea we were going to be made into de facto accomplices.

And, to be fair, they didn’t grill him like interrogators. No, it was all maddeningly “reasonable.” It’s just that under any sort of scrutiny whatsoever he closes up, so we didn’t hear much at all of his side of what happened.

I’ve never seen anyone squirm so much in my life. And so, with him basically having been found guilty, we coached him through what he would say by way of apology and reassurance to the other aggrieved kids. To some extent that was appropriate, since kids are still learning about what it means to be an ethical person who respects other people’s boundaries.

But my wife and i were profoundly uncomfortable about the whole “words being put in his mouth” thing. And that’s all i saw everywhere i looked in the school. The “pledge of allegiance to the flag,” which was recited while we were there. Everywhere, ‘motivational’ posters with captions like “Curiosity: i choose to learn.”

The underlying message is, this is a place where we put words into your mouth. You know? I don’t think i’ve ever met a kid who had to be told to “choose to learn.”

When you’re a kid, you don’t have the liberty to choose what you want to do or say. You are told what you want to do or say. And it is often presented obliquely as if it is a desire coming from you, the kid. And when it is said this way often enough, and when you parrot it and get the appropriate reward, it sinks in. Really, really deeply.

It doesn’t matter whether or not kids understand what the pledge of allegiance is about. To them, it’s just dumb words that they have to repeat every morning… which they do in a droning, hypnotic, rhythmic monotone. But they do understand, on a basic level, that it is something they do to make the adults around them beam with pride (”What good, obedient, upstanding, patriotic kids we have!”) and to avoid punishment for not complying.

And much of this is about learning how to perform the gender we’ve been assigned.

Being in school helped remind me about how that worked when i was younger. I remember viewing adulthood as this barren wasteland where you wander around as a broken person, your dreams and individuality stunted beyond repair. I suppose that was my expectation because my preparation for adulthood consisted of this constant pressure to be someone-not-me, by way of the silencing of my own galla-voice and the replacement of it with something suitably “masculine.”

I remember, for example, eagerly joining the high school wrestling team after lots of input from my father about how much he had enjoyed it. I had never been a sporty kid, though being on the wrestling team was actually good for me in some ways. I wonder if people today look at my almost-thigh-length hair and somewhat femme presentation (minus, you know, the occasional stompy boots) and have any trouble picturing me grasping someone and pinning him to the mat?

But i would never have “wanted” to do that if it hadn’t been subtly put there, if it hadn’t been rewarded and encouraged once i said i wanted to do it.

On a bigger scale, this is why women’s “consent” to various kinds of things in a patriarchal society can be so sketchy sometimes.

But this leads into troubling territory because i’m wondering how we can distinguish between “educating” a kid (enabling their cognition while also respecting their identity and will) versus putting our thoughts into their heads and our words in their mouths. Kids don’t always know how to make decisions, it’s one of the things they’re still learning, and they sometimes have to be guided to a decision. (Or… light bulb comes on… do they?)