Being Cool

Last month over breakfast, the topic of conversation between my daughters and me turned to who was “cool” at school.

Ella blurted: “I don’t want to be cool. It means Constipated Overweighted Out-of-style Loser.” She was quite proud of herself, in the manner of 9-year-olds who think they’ve said something, well, cool.

Sophia, Ella’s 7-year-old sister, didn’t get the fourth-grade humor. “I’m cool, so there!” she replied. “And by the way, you just called me a loser.”

All this twisting of definitions and labeling got me thinking about the basic idea of popularity. Is it wrong to want your kids to be “cool?"

Times change, technology develops, and styles get recycled. But humans, on a behavioral level, really haven’t evolved that much. Every kid in history has gone through the same social challenges and pressures. Choosing friends, fitting in and getting left out: the reality is, growing up can be tough.

But kids, by definition, don’t understand that. School-age children want to feel accepted by classmates, friends and other peers. Every now and then, we encounter a kid who dares to be different. While that counterculture ethos is admirable, it’s hard to pull off, though not impossible. Even adults have trouble standing up for beliefs they know are in the minority. (Quick test: name one openly gay male athlete or politician.)

We hope our kids will live happy, comfortable lives, free of major conflict and hardships.

We also say we encourage individuality, and that we want our children to be true to themselves. But in real life, kids get picked on for being different. Most of the time, the distractions amount to little more than benign name-calling, maybe some quick-drying tears and everything is forgotten before the next recess.

But playground dynamics can get nasty and lead to poor performance in school, or worse. Some kids withdraw from the most basic of juvenile taunts and are strongly affected by less than what most of us would define as bullying. Every child reacts in his or her own way, and our experiences may not be enough to help our children cope. Kids need to figure things out for themselves.

That’s easy to say, but what if your kid is the different one?

It’s normal to feel relieved when your kids end up being mentally and physically comparable to everyone else in their class, learning and playing and laughing like kids are supposed to do. It’s certainly a whole lot easier.

And if childhood were supposed to be a constant string of disappointments, failed relationships and self-esteem busting situations, we wouldn’t be trying to eliminate child abuse, neglect and poverty; we’d be rewarding it.

I’m not saying I want my daughters to conform just to be considered popular. And I certainly would expect Ella or Sophia to stand up for themselves or others if they felt strongly enough about an issue. But I’ll admit it: I want my children to be socially adept, and I’m not ashamed to say it, whether it’s cool or not.