Baby Activist
You know, you put a kid down for ten minutes and she rolls off and does things quite unexpected. Or perhaps expected, if I'd thought about it.
Sarcasm Girl was invited by her counselor at school to attend a Young Women's Health Conference downtown today; she got the day off from her classes and attended with a few other girls (all, I believe, in upper grades, but SG skews older). She attended two workshops, one "useless" one on youth activism (I think she was imagining talking about the war or underfunding education, but it turned into 'what do we do about mean people') and one on entrepreneurship (about which I had no clue she was interested. Live and learn). But then, as I was driving her from the conference to her voice lesson, she mentioned that she was part of a youth group in which a friend is an organizer, aimed at protesting the war and the effects of No Child Left Behind, and said friend has delegated a good deal to SG. "I'm, like, sort of like spearheading the research and stuff."
My daughter the activist. Whoa.
Sarcasm Girl was invited by her counselor at school to attend a Young Women's Health Conference downtown today; she got the day off from her classes and attended with a few other girls (all, I believe, in upper grades, but SG skews older). She attended two workshops, one "useless" one on youth activism (I think she was imagining talking about the war or underfunding education, but it turned into 'what do we do about mean people') and one on entrepreneurship (about which I had no clue she was interested. Live and learn). But then, as I was driving her from the conference to her voice lesson, she mentioned that she was part of a youth group in which a friend is an organizer, aimed at protesting the war and the effects of No Child Left Behind, and said friend has delegated a good deal to SG. "I'm, like, sort of like spearheading the research and stuff."
My daughter the activist. Whoa.
posted by Madeleine Robins at 5:06 PM
6 Comments:
Dude!
---L.
Go her!
Scouting is teaching me that kids will in fact go out and save the world, but only if it's their idea. (And if they can manage not to get distracted along the way.)
The distraction problem is always with us. But less so than it used to be. It's really cool to watch her coming into her own.
I was amused to hear about your daughter taking workshops on "mean people" (as in, what to do with?) and "entrepreneurship." Did she surmise any connection?
The conference had a range of workshops; SG chose two that sounded interesting to her: Activism and Entrepreneurship. That the Activism one degenerated into a "what are you gonna do about mean people" workshop was apparently due to the workshop leader's perception that most of the girls in the audience had to think about activism as it concerned something they understood. SG was looking for something that would let her climb up on the barricades.
I had no idea she was interested in entrepreneurship. One of the fun things about this age is that your kids will suddenly bust out in new directions.
*Ahem*
The owman had us write down three things that "piss you off" on pink sheets of paper and paste them on the walls. Then people would go around and write stars on the ones they agreed with.
I wrote 'the current government,' 'lack of funding in education,' and 'stupid bigoted people.'
The last one honestly was a joke. I mean, it pisses me off, but there's nothing we can DO about it!
The winner was 'fake people,' which roughly translates to 'two-faced people.' And we're supposed to solve that problem... how again?
*glares at both her mother and janni for the distraction comment. grrr*
Post a Comment
<< Home