Double Standard

Until he started full-day Kindergarten, David stayed at my parents' house on the three days a week that I work. Because my parents have a relatively new coffee table—especially when compared to any of the furniture that I own—my Mom used to cover it with a blanket when David came over to stay for the day. Obviously, she was trying to protect the table from sticky fingers, matchbox cars, spilled milk or any manner of injury that David can inflict. In David's mind, however, it was like she had wrapped it just for him, creating a blank canvas, a platform on which to run his train, assemble a puzzle or line up his DVDs. Soon, David could not be in the house for five minutes without carefully lifting everything off of the table—remote control, magazines, potted mum plant—and then requesting help in covering the table.

Last Friday, David had a day off from school and spent the whole day at Granny camp, as it has come to be known. As soon as we arrived home from the land of the veiled table, he apparently decided that it was a practice that needed to be implemented at home. Did he carefully remove all of my precious treasures off of the table to prepare for the draping of the blanket? Of course not. Instead, he lifted one end of the table and watched with delight as everything slid off the other end into a pile on the floor. Talk about a double standard.

So, last week I also had David's first school conference of the year. I was a little bit nervous just because I have not known this teacher for very long and I wasn't really sure how David was doing in her class. Well, she told me that David has made huge progress. His handwriting is improving. He is doing well with his Touch Math and he is reading above grade level. Stop the presses. David READS? He certainly will not read for me at home. Essentially, David will do everything at school that he respectfully declines to do at home. Once again, the double standard. David performs better for his teacher, than he does for me at home and it couldn't have made me happier.