Give me a child until he is seven ...

Jason and I have been watching a series of British documetaries that follow a series of children over the course of more than 20 years to see how their initial class and education differences play out in their lives. The first film, 7 Up, was absolutely fascinating, with its upper class twit 7-year-olds saying they read the Times for the stock numbers, and its East End kid with the barely understandable accent and a clear vision of wanting to be a jockey when he grew up. The directors of the initial film visited the children every seven years, making 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, and 43 Up. We've made it through 21, and have 28 sitting on top of the tv waiting for us to have time to view it.

The series is really interesting, as you can see how the kids change (or don't), and how their "station" in life changes (or doesn't) over the years. I can't say it's the best-filmed documentary, and the fact that each of them was designed to be somewhat stand-alone means that there's a lot of repeats of early footage in the later films. Most annoyingly, the voiceover repeatedly intones the wisdom, "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man," I guess to indicate that the kids' basic personalities and futures are pretty much set by the time of the first film. While I sort of agree with that, the all-American, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and rise to riches from rags part of me wants to say that none of the kids are stuck where they start ... their future shouldn't be absolutely determined by what they do at age 7.

Over the last couple of days, however, I've started to think that maybe there's something to that idea of traits that are set in stone at a very early age. At Liza's last OT appointment, her therapist was discussing some of the stuff we'll need to continue to work on even once Liza has been discharged from the therapy program. According to Denise, a lot of the quirks and problems that Liza has are ones that will probably follow her for the rest of her life ... she may always lag a little behind physically and then burst ahead to catch up with her peers. She may always prefer harder physical treatment to softer movements (she prefers to be bounced or jostled - hard - to being rocked or soothed, and her recent favorite game is for me to roll a big playground ball so that it whacks her in the head, which sets off a round of giggling and "more more more"), so she will probably prefer contact sports like soccer over less-contact-sports like softball. Denise described some of the challenges her other patients have faced as older children, and how their parents have used the techniques they learned when the children were babies to help them deal with the older problems. It made a lot of sense to think that we haven't "fixed" Liza, we've just helped her adjust to her current developmental level, and that we'll need to keep working with her as she grows up. And the idea that the types of movements and soothers that she likes now will still appeal as she grows older makes sense, as disturbing as it is to hear that my daughter is likely to always "like it rough."

I was also thinking about this idea of "give me a child until he is seven" today as I read through the folder of my old report cards and standardized test scores that my parents dug out of a drawer. The comments from the teachers especially drove home how much of my personality was intact at a really early age. "Uses sense of humor to deal with conflicts." "Finds open-ended problems difficult and frustrating." "Prefers concrete problems with a concrete answer." "Needs to improve working with others in a team." "Needs to spend more time on classwork and less time goofing off." "Does exactly what is required of her, but no more."

Thankfully I've stopped crying when confronted by those stupid logic problems my gifted and talented teacher used to torment me with, but other than that, a lot of what the teachers commented on is still with me, for good or for ill. Looks like I'm going to need to bust my butt over the next few years to make sure I get Liza shaped into what I want her to be 20 years from now.

The other thing that struck me as I read through the teachers' comments was that all of my early teachers - up through about third grade - talk about my great sense of humor and charming personality. But neither is mentioned after that, although a couple mention my stellar work ethic in 6th grade. I don't know if the teachers had more important things to write about, the hormones were kicking in and I was becoming more sullen, or if I was starting to show very early signs of the depression that wouldn't be diagnosed for another 20 years, but it was something that really jumped out at me.

I have fond memories of my early school years, but I don't remember a lot of good stuff from 4th, 5th or 6th grade. Those were the years I was too tall, too fat, too smart, and too dorky to fit in anywhere ... even the kids who played Dungeons and Dragons at recess wouldn't let me join in, if that gives you any clue to my social status. I'm easy to find in the class photos, always in the back row with the bad perm, chipmunk cheeks and huge glasses. I wore cowboy boots and clothes my mother made for me, and remember that the only "cool" shoes I could find that fit the summer before 7th grade were pink leather docksiders. I did not have the personality to pull off pink docksiders ... I'm not sure anyone does, actually.

Anyway, it was interesting to read back through all that stuff in light of the documentaries, and to think about what the documentary folks might have predicted for me. What about you? What did your teachers write about you? Is it still true?