Quick question: Do your kids act differently in school than they do at home? Mine certainly do. Now that summer has faded into fall and my two boys’ days are spent in the classroom instead of the living room, the distinction has become glaringly obvious: they are a couple of reserved, polite, demure Dr. Jekylls at school and a couple of raucous, wild-eyed, frothing-at-the-mouth Mr. Hydes at home. It’s quite interesting, really.
Of course, I know exactly from whom they get this trait — me. Yes, their dear old dad. It all started with my first day of school. The year was 1978 (wow, I’m getting old). The place was the kindergarten room at St. Ann’s School in suburban Cleveland. The teacher was… ah, let’s spare her the indignity of being named in such a sordid story. She was a sweet lady.
My mom dropped me off in the morning and, as the story goes, I turned into a complete maniac. I cried, I screamed, I flopped on the floor to scream and cry some more. The worst part, though — the part that lives on in family lore forever — is that I kicked the teacher in the shins! I was so off my little rocker that they had to remove me from the classroom and calm me down in the hall.
After that, I was silent in class — unless I was directly answering a question — for nearly four years! But, eventually, I slipped up. My next run-in with the law occurred when my third-grade teacher sent a note home to my mother to tell her that I was giggling in class. Me — giggling in class! My best friend’s mother received a similar note about her son. He was a quiet kid, too, and we had been giggling together, presumably to avoid speaking. Other than that, I didn’t cause any trouble at school at all.
Now, on the other hand, at home, I was completely transformed. Every day when I arrived home, all heck would break loose and my three brothers and I would spend the rest of the day roughhousing and, generally, just causing mischief. I would be the best Mr. Hyde that I could be.
That Jekyll-at-school and Hyde-at-home act would become my trademark. In high school, one of my teachers nicknamed me the “Master of the One Word Sentence” for my ability to answer any query with “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.” I even loved this old story of our 13th president, Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge: at a White House party, a woman told him that she made a bet that she could get more than two words out of him. Cal coolly replied, “You lose.” He was a “Master of the Two Word Sentence.”
And now, here I am, a few years later, watching my two boys act the same way. At home, you can hardly get them to shut up or stop squabbling. At school, their teachers report quite sincerely, they are soft-spoken, model citizens.
At home, it’s like a scene straight out of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” Just like those wild Who kids, my boys love to shriek, squeak, and squeal racing round on their wheels, dancing with jing-tinglers tied to their heels, blowing their flu-flubbers, banging their tar-tinkers, blowing their hoo-hoovers, banging their gar-dinkers, beating their trum-tookers, slamming their sloo-slunkers, beating their blum-blookers, whamming their hoo-whunkers, and making earsplitting noises deluxe on their great big Electro-Who-Cardio-Flux. I know exactly how the Grinch felt. I, too, can’t always take all that NOISE, NOISE, NOISE, NOISE!
I suppose I should count my blessings, though. I should be glad that it isn’t the other way around. Dr. Jekyll is much better suited for school.
Out of curiosity, Brian Kantz searched eBay for a used great big Electro-Who-Cardio-Flux. No dice. Apparently, not everything is available on eBay. Visit Brian online at www.briankantz.com or drop him a note at [email protected].
