I see our parents subscribed to the same school of thought.
maggiegrift+103
“95%? You got 5% wrong???”
Räven+16
My tenth grade math teacher bawled me out for missing one single question on the geometry Regent’s exam. (I mean, she was right, of course: there’s no reason to ever get a math question wrong…)
My parents did not, but I’m sure they were surprised and perhaps also disappointed.
betsymore+29
I feel kind of bad, but “did your little bitch friends laugh at your bad grade” just made me legit LOL. In a wincing, painful sort of way.
gripyfish+68
After getting a hard-won C+ in Ceramics, my dad asked me why it wasn’t an A, because “it’s just ART.”
Look, Dad, you try making something on a pottery wheel and see how far you get, okay?
jennycieplak+9
DUDE it’s hard!
ross doran+117
Michael: A-, huh? George Michael: Proud of me? Michael: Very proud. Michael: Minus.
cuminafterall+107
“You got a B+! Not an A! We’re raising a normal human child, not a freaky super genius! Hallelujah!”
My parents were both D students and they didn’t quite know what to do with me. (They are very proud of me now, though.)
mmsees+9
That’s totally what my parents were like. “You know, getting some B’s wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Don’t you want to go outside or something instead of studying? Is completing all that homework really that crucial? Could you take a breath?”
They still don’t know entirely where I came from, though they are proud.
ballisticjaguar+7
My parents were both solidly average in high school, and somehow managed to produce 3 overachieving straight A plus children. I think it mystifies them a great deal.
A few years back my aunt told my dad about her physiotherapist who, upon hearing that my dad was my aunt’s little brother, responded “oh ballisticjaguar’s father! I remember him, he was cute!” My dad did not remember the woman in question from high school, and given that he was on his school’s basketball team and tended to spend his free time skateboarding around town, we have realized that he was, indeed, a popular jock in high school. So I think his children are just as puzzled by the blood relation as he is (although that did not, thankfully, translate into weird parental pressure to have friends, just the occasional annoying comment on how we are ‘antisocial.’)
hussified+13
As my father used to say to my sister, “I am paying [tuition at this all-girls’ private high school] for A’s, young lady.” It gave her a complex, but she is hella smart.
ofTrebond+76
I once brought home a report card with all As and an A- in math, and my mother asked me if I needed math tutoring.
My parents agreed to horseback riding lessons during my Girl Horse Phase, but only if I could bring my math grade up to an A–math was my only B subject. It never happened, and years later I asked my mom (whom I love dearly, but was VERY hard on me re: my grades) if she remembered my yearly plea for lessons. Her response: “Yeah, we actually couldn’t afford it, but I knew you would never be able to get an A, anyways.”
Thanks, Mom.
She was so right, though.
mmsees+13
Whenever I asked for a horse, my parents would tell me they would pay for a horse or college. When I started trying to negotiate getting scholarships and choosing an inexpensive school, they were like “that was never an actual deal. We were just trying to illustrate cost. We were not going to buy you a horse instead of sending you to college.” Probably worked out for the best, but I was still bitter for a while.
CleverManka+19
Stuff like this reminds me to call my parents TONIGHT to thank them for being great. I wish I could give everyone my parents.
llama-j+2
Oooh, what were they like, CleverManka? I had parents who were meh at parenting, and I love hearing stories about great parents. Please share!
CleverManka+6
Aw! Sure! Hurray for my great parents! Well, great for me, anyway, and my weird little 40-years-old-at-birth kid self (according to my mom). My dad was a teacher (he wrapped up his PhD in special education and school administration when I was a toddler) and my mom was a nurse, and they both have personalities to match those professions. Very much a “I am going to show you how to do a thing and then you are going to figure out how to do it for yourself on your own.” I sometimes say that I raised myself, which I sort of did because they were fairly hands-off, but I had really good examples to follow. They’re both very ethical people and before they got so wrapped up in religion (recently, over the past ten years), they were very logical. I honestly don’t remember a lot of my early childhood, but it must’ve been fine because by the time I was in junior high I was pretty much allowed to do what I wanted as long as schoolwork and chores got done (which they always did because I was That Sort of Kid). My parents understood and accepted my strengths and weaknesses and praised me when it was appropriate, without gauging my success via other kids or their own expectations. When they felt like I screwed up, we talked about it–why I chose to do something they didn’t think was appropriate. Sometimes I managed to justify myself and they agreed that perhaps that wasn’t the decision they would have chosen, but it seemed to be the right one for me (like one of my boyfriends, whom they eventually came to really like). Sometimes it really was a crappy move on my part and we talked about ways I could make a better choice in the future. Now that I think about it, they were more like boss/employee conversations about work performance.
Anyway, their methods might not have worked for everyone, but damn I feel like I had a great childhood and my parents did an excellent job of raising me.
dianabhurlburt+22
My mother was very gentle with me when I failed a couple of math classes in middle school and high school and barely passed the rest. Thanks for driving me to remedial classes across the river, Mom. It’s not your fault we didn’t know dyscalculia is a thing.
Dyscalculia1685+3
Dyscalculics represent. I am now insanely taking on college level statistics and it’s back to the remedial classes again. There are things you can do to learn math with said disorder, but it’s bloody hard. I wish my mother had been as patient as yours.
CleverManka+3
REPRESENT
winterbymorning+38
Every time I got a grade back my mom would interrogate me about how all my classmates did on the same test/assignment/whatever and get impatient with my constant “Iunno.” During her student days in the Communist Motherland, everyone’s grades were posted up outside the classroom (I think they still do that) and she couldn’t understand why my school didn’t do the same thing.
Also, while I was in elementary and high school, she maintained the pretense that she had gotten perfect 10s in all her report cards and was an irreproachable student in every way. Once I got into university she started admitting stuff like, oh, I would have failed chemistry if your grandfather hadn’t found me a tutor, or I only passed my Italian class because my friend and I cheated on tests and the teacher never noticed because he was too busy flirting with one of our classmates, and then they got married.
plspassthePinot+20
I am fascinated by your Moms school stories
winterbymorning+10
The teacher who married a student thing happened in university, so it’s not as creepy as it could have been.
Schoolsucks76+2
My (private, very strict) school did the thing where they posted the grades for everyone to see. It was so humiliating.
winterbymorning+5
My mom’s stance was that being publicly humiliated by your bad grades would just spur you to study harder and improve yourself.
I s2g my mom is not actually the awful person that my comments on this post make her seem like. She’s really great and I love her! She just grew up in a completely different environment and had very high standards for her kids.
plspassthePinot+4
There’s also “You got a B?! If you dont get a 4.0 I’m going to force you into private school (away from the kids youve went to school w since kindergarten / where you’re leader of like 1000 clubs and im sure this isnt a traumatizing scenario for you!)”
winterbymorning+11
My mom did the reverse – threaten to pull me out of private school and send me to the crappy neighbourhood public school (the reasoning being that if I was going to get bad grades, I may as well do it for free instead of costing my parents thousands of dollars in tuition). Which my brother had attended, actually, so I always felt a bit bad for him when she said that.
(I just realized this sounds like a clear-cut case of favoritism, but it was actually that my brother was 16 when we arrived in Canada and there wasn’t any money to send him to a private school even if my parents had known what the good schools in town were, whereas I was just 7 so by the time I got to high school we were much more settled and knew what was up.)
mrtafadhali+1
My parents did the reverse, too! Not in a punitive way, just in a every time I got a bad test grade it would turn into a “Are you sure you should be in that school? We should pull you out,” talk, which, fun. Especially since we moved 3,000 miles right before middle school so I knew literally no one in the state other than my classmates.
meetapossum+6
Ah, yes. I recall my first B, also in math. The ire, however, came from my dad (who didn’t, and whose other children did not, go to college. So pressure on the baby of the family!). After he brought me to tears my mom (a teacher) had to explain to him that maybe a B WAS the best I could do in math and maybe he should chill the fuck out. Which he did, thankfully.
Es_Petal+47
When I rang my dad (who lived abroad) to tell him I’d gotten an unconditional offer to Oxford to read French and linguistics (2 Es needed in my A levels, was predicted 4 As at the time), the first thing he said was ‘why didn’t you apply to do maths’?
I put the phone down.
Sam+21
My god, they sound like OWLS
Es_Petal+11
GCSEs are OWLs (general certificate of secondary education, you take 9 or 10 – or more if you are superbright – taken at 16, you don’t have to stay on at school after them), and A-levels are NEWTs (taken at 18, you take 3 or 4, optional.)
tubatoothpaste+25
OMG yes, this needs to be a book or a podcast or something: Explaining British Culture through Harry Potter Comparisons so Americans can Understand
grlgoddess+34
“You only got 100%?? What about bonus questions??” Actual things my dad said to me in elementary school. None of my teachers offered bonus questions. Ever.
eegghh+29
Ah yes, I believe I know this story… After sliding downward in math, getting a tutor, and working very very hard to improve I brought home a B+ in my pre calc class with pure radiant joy in my heart, a skipping song of triumph in my soul.
Then….my mother looked at the grade, looked at me and said, ever so slowly… “I see. But…I like to think all my children are A children.”
Our relationship has a lot of dark layers.
Cbear
Jesus Christ that is very similar to my mother’s reaction (driving to parent-teacher conferences in 5th grade) Mom: So what kind of grades are you getting? Me (proud, chipper, triumphant!): ALL A’s! Except a B+ in Math, but that is hard for me. Mom (pops balloon of chipper triumpantness): Hmmmm. Well, Cbear, you are not a B student.
The terrifying, icy cold disappointment in her voice meant I got straight As until junior year in high school. When I received another B+ in precalc. All those years in between of Math As were anxiety riddled, an I had finally come back to the sweet B+ homeland I was meant to be at.
deleted6501527+19
I remember being extremely proud of the A I got in my Medieval Mystics undergraduate seminar, which was one of the most academically rigorous and challenging courses I ever took. My dad snorted and said, “Talk to me when you get an A in Statistics – now THAT’S hard.”
Because I am his child and inherited his curmudgeonliness and his father’s before him, I replied, “Well, *you* wouldn’t have gotten an A in my seminar.”
He concurred, but only because he thought the course would have been a waste of his time.
Our values have continued to diverge over the years…
Loony_Lovegood
I’m so glad I’m not the only one with a Dad like this. Thank you for sharing. <3
Sam+7
I remember in jr high seeing a guy with his head against his locker, and I asked the guy next to me, what’s with him, and he just said “Asian parents”. That stuck with me in no small part cause our program was like 60% Asian. Six years later, when we were about to graduate high school and going to a bunch of ceremonies for our grades, one of them mentioned that she just hated filling out the forms last week, because Stanford hadn’t sent out responses yet, so she wrote undecided, but “everyone knows that undecided in April is code for LOSER”. She was homecoming queen.
elsamac+4
I am sure, mostly sure, kinda sure, that my loving parents never greeted an A- with a “What was the minus for?”
Not in so many words.
jennycieplak+9
Luckily it all turned around once I got my first real job (in the same career field as my dad) and immediately outearned him. Now when we have arguments half the time I just say “look, do you want to compare pay stubs?” NOT that smarter people automatically get paid more regardless of profession of course but we do basically the same thing…
blunderbusst+33
Hello, I am Opposite Person. I used to Freak Out about anything less than an A+. My parents would very calmly explain, as I threw myself around the room wailing, that all they cared about what that I do my best.
I think they were secretly pleased when I started ditching school and getting C’s my senior year. “Finally, our kid is a normal kid.”
dakimel+4
still crossing my fingers that my firstborn will get a B in something so he can learn to live with less than perfection. (He just finished his first term of college & did get one A-, and is almost over the blow.)
salted_caramel+8
This was me, three years ago. Compared to my freshman roommate, who has basically spent 99% of her time in college studying, that one A- was what finally pushed me to just *let it go* (cue Idina Menzel). DESTROYING PERFECTIONISM IS WHAT COLLEGE IS FOR
ballisticjaguar+1
That definitely happened to me as well. I got one B (I never expected to maintain my only A plus grades in university – my older siblings had not, at least not in their first year – but I had not expected any Bs) and from then on it was: if it’s an 80 or above, that’s good enough!
coloredlights+2
Dude, I was the opposite – I did well enough (but not perfectionist-ly) in a very demanding high school, then got to college and was like “holy shit this is easy” and proceeded to be highly annoyed the three times I got an A- over the course of four years.
keristars+4
Oh, man, yes – same story here.
As the eldest, it was hard on all my siblings that I was a perfectionist and a homebody and terrified of breaking rules, because my parents never had to worry about me (at least, not in the usual teenagery sense), and none of my siblings, all younger than me, had the same smarts** or shyness. The really bad part is that I skipped almost exactly 25% of my senior year and STILL had high enough grades where if I hadn’t missed so much school, I would’ve been exempt from final exams. My junior year, I was devastated the one quarter I got a D in Honors Physics (I struggle mightily with friction and pulley problems – got A+ the other three quarters, because light and electricity are a lot easier to understand) and then when I got a C in Algebra 2/Trig. My parents were very supportive and nice about it, and were like “this math isn’t even stuff we did in high school, you’re already doing good”. It’s probably just as well that they sent me to the slacker private school instead of one of the public schools with an IB program that I really wanted to attend, now that I think about it. I’m not sure I could’ve handled pressure for good grades beyond my own perfectionism.
**ps my siblings are ALL very smart people, or at least mostly, they just didn’t have the perfectionism + the type of skill to ace classroom learning easily. i don’t want anyone to think i’m saying they’re idiots or anything. different types of smarts! i have the book kind, but not the kind that let me load a dishwasher on the first try.
jenavira+8
ARE YOU ME? I apologize to my little sister every once in a while, because I was the perfectionist homebody oldest kid, I never even went out in the evenings other than to school events/practices, so when she hit high school and started dating and hanging out with friends and coming home past ten, my parents pretty much freaked out.
prufrocklives
i had something like a 91% average and three scholarships my graduating year, despite being stoned out of my tree, skipping classes, and not giving a shit. i had classmates who had nervous breakdowns about their average dropping below 97%. my parents were like “um. cool? just make sure you can get into university.”
captainbartlet+7
I worked my ass off for an A- in precalc (a class I continue to struggle with) and the first thing my parents said when I brought home that 1st quarter report card was “Why is your gym grade higher than your math grade?” They were seriously worried that I might have been focusing more on fitness than parabolas, as if the latter would help me more in life. Now, I have always been a solid B student in gym and it was only because the school reorganized the way they graded gym that I managed an A at all, and my parents got deeply concerned that I might have changed my priorities as regards gym vs. math. As if their book-loving fact-reciting non-moving daughter would ever get an A in gym of her volition. C’mon, mom! Appreciate my math grades! At least I got an A!
theskyrbeast+12
My senior year of high school, I got a D in gym class citizenship/participation. My excuse, as presented to my parents: “I was inadequately enthusiastic about Richard Simmons.” My parents thought this was a perfectly reasonable reaction.
(Yes, that Richard Simmons, of 1980s aerobic dance fame. We would watch the films on a rolled-in TV, and were expected to copy all the movements exactly, with great seriousness. I couldn’t keep a straight face.)
sagerenee+3
Huh, I don’t remember you going to my school but we must have both been there. Actually Richard Simmons was great after years of the gym teacher silently mocking my inability to do anything requiring hand eye coordination. Eff you Mrs. Nickols I don’t need to be able to hit a volleyball to earn a living.
Iris+6
<<TRIGGER WARNING FOR SELF-HARM
This plus my untreated bipolar is the reason I attempted suicide in middle school over a 78. Every other grade on that report card was an A. I honestly wish I was exaggerating.
I can say that the “lowered expectations” trick works, though, because my younger sister did that and got rewarded with money if she got anything above a C, something my mother swore she’d never do for me because “good grades are expected, not rewarded”.
Unbelievably, my parents and I get along pretty well, now that I no longer live with them.
dakimel+12
Aw, dear one, I am sorry. I’m glad you’re past those crap-hole years & hope things continue to be steady for you.
SBP+3
I identify so hard with this and should probably check out that book. I once got a B on a calculus test and my parents told me I clearly hadn’t been studying hard enough and would have to quit my job if I didn’t want to become a total failure. All the while with B & C achieving siblings who were mightily praised! I was so confused and so unhappy, and when I finally got the courage to ask my parents about why they had that double standard for me alone, ten years after the fact, the response was “Well you were the one who was going to get As anyway, and we didn’t want to make them feel bad by hearing you were doing better” ?!
There was also the time that I got a 34, not a 36, on the ACTs and they made me retake it.
StillT+3
My earth-shattering low grade experience was in 5th grade. I had done spectacularly in school every year through 4th grade. However, that year, our first teacher left for another job, and the rest of the year was split between two well-meaning, but ultimately unqualified “permanent substitutes.” The one we had for most of the year mostly just let us play with pattern blocks and Magic cards, rather that actually learn anything. My first set of grades from the next year was pretty much all Cs. In one way it was good, because it got me to stop thinking my life would be ruined if I ever received less than perfect grades. In another way, it was bad, because it was really hard for me to get back on track to proper school habits.
Genny_+4
That sounds a hell of a lot like what I tell MYSELF about grades, god. My parents have never been remotely like that, but somehow I gave myself a complex and if it’s less than the top grade band, I register it as a ‘fail’. Even though I went to schools where a ‘C’ was a pretty good grade for a lot of my peers and getting a ‘B’ in maths (as it happens) was something only the top few were even *able* to do due to the papers given out. (Foundation papers capped at a C and I was on a Higher paper, which only about the top twenty students even got). Swear to god, it’s the unhealthiest mindset ever. And it really pains me to know parents buy into it.
floridagal1+3
The first time I got straight A’s, my parents ranted at me that my teacher said my handwriting was bad.
jld0340+1
I think I was harder on myself about grades than my parents were. I got my first B in fourth grade math (an 84), and at one point I forgot to do a homework assignment and apologized to the teacher, crying.
Then of course I got to high school, left IB finally, and forgot how to give a damn about grades until college, where I had multiple meltdowns over a final project last semester, to the point where my mother had to remind me that my grades are less important than my mental health.
….I guess I AM harder on myself re: grades than my parents are.
pinnipedd+12
Anyone else experience that other aspect of grade-shaming, from classmates? In elementary school (and sometimes middle) my teachers would hold up the papers of A-grade students and show them to the class…cue everyone making fun of me mercilessly for being a “smarty-pants,” “teacher’s pet,” etc. and resulting in me trying to show off every time I got a bad grade so I could be “cool.”
…it’s a fucked-up world.
(To be clear, definitely not trying to humble-brag for getting an A in 5th grade social studies, and parental disappointment is the absolute worst, but…the way I socially learned to feel ashamed of trying hard and doing well in school is something that makes me kind of resentful to this day. And bad at tooting my own horn when I actually need to as an adult.)
Hey_Cinderella+5
YES. I moved to a new high school in junior year where there were classes were waaaay easier. Our history class was graded on a curve so I always kept quiet about my grades because I’d usually get 100% (or more if there were bonus questions). Then one day my teacher decided to let the class know I’d gotten 105% on a test to which somebody immediately yelled, “So SHE’S the one who’s been ruining it for the rest of us.” The angry looks I got from most of the class as the New Girl who Ruined Everything still haunt me 11 years later.
annesedney+9
That happened to me as well. I remember desperately trying to cover up the big red “A” on my papers when the teacher handed them back- my version of The Scarlet Letter, haha.
annaisabe+1
My parents called a conference with my teacher because I got a B in math on my report card despite having A’s in everything else.
I was in third grade.
I didn’t get another B for a semester until my last year of high school.
betsymurgatroyd+4
I would have given my left eye tooth for a B+ . Like others on these comments, I am dyscalculic. I remember crying over math not understanding why I couldn’t retain anything. And then I finally stopped giving a fuck what my parents thought because obviously they couldn’t relate to anything I was going through.
Cyrenaica
That is the same with me, but I think my parents are secretly glad she has a life and doesn’t put as much pressure on herself.
Soramke+8
I was very lucky that I had an underachiever twin brother. We are equally smart, but I’ve always been a better student than him. (“Always” until college, that is. But we go to very different schools.) We were both homeschooled from the end of 2nd grade until 9th grade, but in high school, my mother was so busy getting into screaming matches with my brother over his grades that she wouldn’t be TOO concerned about an occasional B on my part. (That, and at least in 9th grade I could blame it on her: “Of course I’m getting a B in Social Studies! We have to write timed in-class essays! I never had to write anything timed when I was homeschooled!”) But I put enough pressure on myself, anyways. When I got the results from taking the SATs in 11th grade, with a perfect 800 in Critical Reading and Math and a 750 in Writing (I never really did get better at timed essays), I wanted to retake it so I could do better in Writing and my parents were the ones who suggested that that might be a tad bit ridiculous.
Of course, there’s still pressure there. After my first year of college, I came home in May and had to admit that I had basically had a complete mental breakdown over the last month of the semester due to severe anxiety that completely screwed me up academically. My mother’s initial response was to get upset that I hadn’t talked to her about it before, and “if talking to me about these things is so awful, I guess I’ll just stay in a hotel for the summer, because I’d hate to put more pressure on you with my presence.” After she calmed down enough to decide that maybe moving out wasn’t the best response to her daughter’s admission to struggling with anxiety, her response was, “Well, your grades had better go up next semester.” Thanks, ’cause it’s not like that’s exactly what I’m anxious about to begin with. My grades did not, in fact, go up; rather, my depression and anxiety got way worse and I wound up failing the entire semester and I am now suspended from school. Still haven’t had the courage to tell her.
V_Hardapple+1
Bloody hell, thanking my lucky stars for my lovely parents after reading these comments – I mean, they would have sat me down and been really disappointed if they thought I wasn’t making an effort, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to have them go out of their way to make me feel bad. Hugs to you guys.
sunatmidnight
Thankfully, my parents were kind. Or maybe they just realized they didn’t need to worry because I was hard enough on myself. The only ‘crying in the school bathroom’ experience I ever had was when I got a D on a math test. Spent the whole lunch period crying in a stall because I got a bad grade on a math test. In sixth grade.
Except spelling. My mom was convinced I would never get a job when I had all As but got Cs on my spelling tests. She ignored my promises that I would spell check my job applications.
acornantiques+3
My parents were fine about my grades, but my Maths teacher was the real problem. She would regularly shame me in front of the class (“Everyone did really well – A and A* grades all round! Except for you, who got a B”) and, though I’d always hated maths in general, I began to really despise it. I asked to be moved to a different class where the average grade was a B or a C, so I’d be on the same level as everyone else, but she refused. Weirdly I still have dreams/nightmares about being back in her class, even nine years on… however the satisfaction I get from rarely, if ever, having to use any kind of advanced maths in real life (equations? Nope. Trigonometry? Never.) makes me wish I’d stood up to her a bit more and been able to prove I wouldn’t need half of the so-called life skills from maths classes.
allegedly_cc+3
I always knew EXACTLY which grades would draw questions — a B was okay, but a B- was going to raise questions. Once, I elaborately doctored a transcript in high school by white-ing out the “-” next to a B. I knew the GPA had to add up (as if they would have checked?!), so I ALSO white-ed out the “+” next to one of the As. Then I went down to the corner store and ran off a copy so it would look smooth/original/legit. It was the saddest lie.
magentasmusings+1
Same here. My mum still thinks I am !
setauuta+1
I’m pretty sure this was my older brother’s plan through middle school, which worked wonderfully for him. Unfortunately, I had a truly annoying tendency to have easily-impressed teachers, so I couldn’t pull that off. Fortunately, my college was one of those that don’t really give “grades” until you got a transcript, so my mother never had to see the shameful C in Physics and D in Directing (which…had a story behind it) until it was way too late. (The fact that my mother never went to college, and my father got an AA from the Community College of the Air Force, helped as they had no expectations at all.)
I see our parents subscribed to the same school of thought.
“95%? You got 5% wrong???”
My tenth grade math teacher bawled me out for missing one single question on the geometry Regent’s exam. (I mean, she was right, of course: there’s no reason to ever get a math question wrong…)
My parents did not, but I’m sure they were surprised and perhaps also disappointed.
I feel kind of bad, but “did your little bitch friends laugh at your bad grade” just made me legit LOL. In a wincing, painful sort of way.
After getting a hard-won C+ in Ceramics, my dad asked me why it wasn’t an A, because “it’s just ART.”
Look, Dad, you try making something on a pottery wheel and see how far you get, okay?
DUDE it’s hard!
Michael: A-, huh?
George Michael: Proud of me?
Michael: Very proud.
Michael: Minus.
“You got a B+! Not an A! We’re raising a normal human child, not a freaky super genius! Hallelujah!”
My parents were both D students and they didn’t quite know what to do with me. (They are very proud of me now, though.)
That’s totally what my parents were like. “You know, getting some B’s wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Don’t you want to go outside or something instead of studying? Is completing all that homework really that crucial? Could you take a breath?”
They still don’t know entirely where I came from, though they are proud.
My parents were both solidly average in high school, and somehow managed to produce 3 overachieving straight A plus children. I think it mystifies them a great deal.
A few years back my aunt told my dad about her physiotherapist who, upon hearing that my dad was my aunt’s little brother, responded “oh ballisticjaguar’s father! I remember him, he was cute!” My dad did not remember the woman in question from high school, and given that he was on his school’s basketball team and tended to spend his free time skateboarding around town, we have realized that he was, indeed, a popular jock in high school. So I think his children are just as puzzled by the blood relation as he is (although that did not, thankfully, translate into weird parental pressure to have friends, just the occasional annoying comment on how we are ‘antisocial.’)
As my father used to say to my sister, “I am paying [tuition at this all-girls’ private high school] for A’s, young lady.” It gave her a complex, but she is hella smart.
I once brought home a report card with all As and an A- in math, and my mother asked me if I needed math tutoring.
Not enough people know about Goodness Gracious Me.
For your viewing pleasure.
It’s the BEST.
My parents agreed to horseback riding lessons during my Girl Horse Phase, but only if I could bring my math grade up to an A–math was my only B subject. It never happened, and years later I asked my mom (whom I love dearly, but was VERY hard on me re: my grades) if she remembered my yearly plea for lessons. Her response: “Yeah, we actually couldn’t afford it, but I knew you would never be able to get an A, anyways.”
Thanks, Mom.
She was so right, though.
Whenever I asked for a horse, my parents would tell me they would pay for a horse or college. When I started trying to negotiate getting scholarships and choosing an inexpensive school, they were like “that was never an actual deal. We were just trying to illustrate cost. We were not going to buy you a horse instead of sending you to college.” Probably worked out for the best, but I was still bitter for a while.
Stuff like this reminds me to call my parents TONIGHT to thank them for being great. I wish I could give everyone my parents.
Oooh, what were they like, CleverManka? I had parents who were meh at parenting, and I love hearing stories about great parents. Please share!
Aw! Sure! Hurray for my great parents! Well, great for me, anyway, and my weird little 40-years-old-at-birth kid self (according to my mom). My dad was a teacher (he wrapped up his PhD in special education and school administration when I was a toddler) and my mom was a nurse, and they both have personalities to match those professions. Very much a “I am going to show you how to do a thing and then you are going to figure out how to do it for yourself on your own.” I sometimes say that I raised myself, which I sort of did because they were fairly hands-off, but I had really good examples to follow. They’re both very ethical people and before they got so wrapped up in religion (recently, over the past ten years), they were very logical. I honestly don’t remember a lot of my early childhood, but it must’ve been fine because by the time I was in junior high I was pretty much allowed to do what I wanted as long as schoolwork and chores got done (which they always did because I was That Sort of Kid). My parents understood and accepted my strengths and weaknesses and praised me when it was appropriate, without gauging my success via other kids or their own expectations. When they felt like I screwed up, we talked about it–why I chose to do something they didn’t think was appropriate. Sometimes I managed to justify myself and they agreed that perhaps that wasn’t the decision they would have chosen, but it seemed to be the right one for me (like one of my boyfriends, whom they eventually came to really like). Sometimes it really was a crappy move on my part and we talked about ways I could make a better choice in the future. Now that I think about it, they were more like boss/employee conversations about work performance.
Anyway, their methods might not have worked for everyone, but damn I feel like I had a great childhood and my parents did an excellent job of raising me.
My mother was very gentle with me when I failed a couple of math classes in middle school and high school and barely passed the rest. Thanks for driving me to remedial classes across the river, Mom. It’s not your fault we didn’t know dyscalculia is a thing.
Dyscalculics represent. I am now insanely taking on college level statistics and it’s back to the remedial classes again. There are things you can do to learn math with said disorder, but it’s bloody hard. I wish my mother had been as patient as yours.
REPRESENT
Every time I got a grade back my mom would interrogate me about how all my classmates did on the same test/assignment/whatever and get impatient with my constant “Iunno.” During her student days in the Communist Motherland, everyone’s grades were posted up outside the classroom (I think they still do that) and she couldn’t understand why my school didn’t do the same thing.
Also, while I was in elementary and high school, she maintained the pretense that she had gotten perfect 10s in all her report cards and was an irreproachable student in every way. Once I got into university she started admitting stuff like, oh, I would have failed chemistry if your grandfather hadn’t found me a tutor, or I only passed my Italian class because my friend and I cheated on tests and the teacher never noticed because he was too busy flirting with one of our classmates, and then they got married.
I am fascinated by your Moms school stories
The teacher who married a student thing happened in university, so it’s not as creepy as it could have been.
My (private, very strict) school did the thing where they posted the grades for everyone to see. It was so humiliating.
My mom’s stance was that being publicly humiliated by your bad grades would just spur you to study harder and improve yourself.
I s2g my mom is not actually the awful person that my comments on this post make her seem like. She’s really great and I love her! She just grew up in a completely different environment and had very high standards for her kids.
There’s also “You got a B?! If you dont get a 4.0 I’m going to force you into private school (away from the kids youve went to school w since kindergarten / where you’re leader of like 1000 clubs and im sure this isnt a traumatizing scenario for you!)”
My mom did the reverse – threaten to pull me out of private school and send me to the crappy neighbourhood public school (the reasoning being that if I was going to get bad grades, I may as well do it for free instead of costing my parents thousands of dollars in tuition). Which my brother had attended, actually, so I always felt a bit bad for him when she said that.
(I just realized this sounds like a clear-cut case of favoritism, but it was actually that my brother was 16 when we arrived in Canada and there wasn’t any money to send him to a private school even if my parents had known what the good schools in town were, whereas I was just 7 so by the time I got to high school we were much more settled and knew what was up.)
My parents did the reverse, too! Not in a punitive way, just in a every time I got a bad test grade it would turn into a “Are you sure you should be in that school? We should pull you out,” talk, which, fun. Especially since we moved 3,000 miles right before middle school so I knew literally no one in the state other than my classmates.
Ah, yes. I recall my first B, also in math. The ire, however, came from my dad (who didn’t, and whose other children did not, go to college. So pressure on the baby of the family!). After he brought me to tears my mom (a teacher) had to explain to him that maybe a B WAS the best I could do in math and maybe he should chill the fuck out. Which he did, thankfully.
When I rang my dad (who lived abroad) to tell him I’d gotten an unconditional offer to Oxford to read French and linguistics (2 Es needed in my A levels, was predicted 4 As at the time), the first thing he said was ‘why didn’t you apply to do maths’?
I put the phone down.
My god, they sound like OWLS
GCSEs are OWLs (general certificate of secondary education, you take 9 or 10 – or more if you are superbright – taken at 16, you don’t have to stay on at school after them), and A-levels are NEWTs (taken at 18, you take 3 or 4, optional.)
OMG yes, this needs to be a book or a podcast or something: Explaining British Culture through Harry Potter Comparisons so Americans can Understand
“You only got 100%?? What about bonus questions??”
Actual things my dad said to me in elementary school. None of my teachers offered bonus questions. Ever.
Ah yes, I believe I know this story… After sliding downward in math, getting a tutor, and working very very hard to improve I brought home a B+ in my pre calc class with pure radiant joy in my heart, a skipping song of triumph in my soul.
Then….my mother looked at the grade, looked at me and said, ever so slowly… “I see. But…I like to think all my children are A children.”
Our relationship has a lot of dark layers.
Jesus Christ that is very similar to my mother’s reaction (driving to parent-teacher conferences in 5th grade)
Mom: So what kind of grades are you getting?
Me (proud, chipper, triumphant!): ALL A’s! Except a B+ in Math, but that is hard for me.
Mom (pops balloon of chipper triumpantness): Hmmmm. Well, Cbear, you are not a B student.
The terrifying, icy cold disappointment in her voice meant I got straight As until junior year in high school. When I received another B+ in precalc. All those years in between of Math As were anxiety riddled, an I had finally come back to the sweet B+ homeland I was meant to be at.
I remember being extremely proud of the A I got in my Medieval Mystics undergraduate seminar, which was one of the most academically rigorous and challenging courses I ever took. My dad snorted and said, “Talk to me when you get an A in Statistics – now THAT’S hard.”
Because I am his child and inherited his curmudgeonliness and his father’s before him, I replied, “Well, *you* wouldn’t have gotten an A in my seminar.”
He concurred, but only because he thought the course would have been a waste of his time.
Our values have continued to diverge over the years…
I’m so glad I’m not the only one with a Dad like this. Thank you for sharing. <3
I remember in jr high seeing a guy with his head against his locker, and I asked the guy next to me, what’s with him, and he just said “Asian parents”. That stuck with me in no small part cause our program was like 60% Asian. Six years later, when we were about to graduate high school and going to a bunch of ceremonies for our grades, one of them mentioned that she just hated filling out the forms last week, because Stanford hadn’t sent out responses yet, so she wrote undecided, but “everyone knows that undecided in April is code for LOSER”. She was homecoming queen.
I am sure, mostly sure, kinda sure, that my loving parents never greeted an A- with a “What was the minus for?”
Not in so many words.
Luckily it all turned around once I got my first real job (in the same career field as my dad) and immediately outearned him. Now when we have arguments half the time I just say “look, do you want to compare pay stubs?” NOT that smarter people automatically get paid more regardless of profession of course but we do basically the same thing…
Hello, I am Opposite Person. I used to Freak Out about anything less than an A+. My parents would very calmly explain, as I threw myself around the room wailing, that all they cared about what that I do my best.
I think they were secretly pleased when I started ditching school and getting C’s my senior year. “Finally, our kid is a normal kid.”
still crossing my fingers that my firstborn will get a B in something so he can learn to live with less than perfection. (He just finished his first term of college & did get one A-, and is almost over the blow.)
This was me, three years ago. Compared to my freshman roommate, who has basically spent 99% of her time in college studying, that one A- was what finally pushed me to just *let it go* (cue Idina Menzel). DESTROYING PERFECTIONISM IS WHAT COLLEGE IS FOR
That definitely happened to me as well. I got one B (I never expected to maintain my only A plus grades in university – my older siblings had not, at least not in their first year – but I had not expected any Bs) and from then on it was: if it’s an 80 or above, that’s good enough!
Dude, I was the opposite – I did well enough (but not perfectionist-ly) in a very demanding high school, then got to college and was like “holy shit this is easy” and proceeded to be highly annoyed the three times I got an A- over the course of four years.
Oh, man, yes – same story here.
As the eldest, it was hard on all my siblings that I was a perfectionist and a homebody and terrified of breaking rules, because my parents never had to worry about me (at least, not in the usual teenagery sense), and none of my siblings, all younger than me, had the same smarts** or shyness. The really bad part is that I skipped almost exactly 25% of my senior year and STILL had high enough grades where if I hadn’t missed so much school, I would’ve been exempt from final exams. My junior year, I was devastated the one quarter I got a D in Honors Physics (I struggle mightily with friction and pulley problems – got A+ the other three quarters, because light and electricity are a lot easier to understand) and then when I got a C in Algebra 2/Trig. My parents were very supportive and nice about it, and were like “this math isn’t even stuff we did in high school, you’re already doing good”. It’s probably just as well that they sent me to the slacker private school instead of one of the public schools with an IB program that I really wanted to attend, now that I think about it. I’m not sure I could’ve handled pressure for good grades beyond my own perfectionism.
**ps my siblings are ALL very smart people, or at least mostly, they just didn’t have the perfectionism + the type of skill to ace classroom learning easily. i don’t want anyone to think i’m saying they’re idiots or anything. different types of smarts! i have the book kind, but not the kind that let me load a dishwasher on the first try.
ARE YOU ME? I apologize to my little sister every once in a while, because I was the perfectionist homebody oldest kid, I never even went out in the evenings other than to school events/practices, so when she hit high school and started dating and hanging out with friends and coming home past ten, my parents pretty much freaked out.
i had something like a 91% average and three scholarships my graduating year, despite being stoned out of my tree, skipping classes, and not giving a shit. i had classmates who had nervous breakdowns about their average dropping below 97%. my parents were like “um. cool? just make sure you can get into university.”
I worked my ass off for an A- in precalc (a class I continue to struggle with) and the first thing my parents said when I brought home that 1st quarter report card was “Why is your gym grade higher than your math grade?” They were seriously worried that I might have been focusing more on fitness than parabolas, as if the latter would help me more in life. Now, I have always been a solid B student in gym and it was only because the school reorganized the way they graded gym that I managed an A at all, and my parents got deeply concerned that I might have changed my priorities as regards gym vs. math. As if their book-loving fact-reciting non-moving daughter would ever get an A in gym of her volition. C’mon, mom! Appreciate my math grades! At least I got an A!
My senior year of high school, I got a D in gym class citizenship/participation. My excuse, as presented to my parents: “I was inadequately enthusiastic about Richard Simmons.” My parents thought this was a perfectly reasonable reaction.
(Yes, that Richard Simmons, of 1980s aerobic dance fame. We would watch the films on a rolled-in TV, and were expected to copy all the movements exactly, with great seriousness. I couldn’t keep a straight face.)
Huh, I don’t remember you going to my school but we must have both been there. Actually Richard Simmons was great after years of the gym teacher silently mocking my inability to do anything requiring hand eye coordination. Eff you Mrs. Nickols I don’t need to be able to hit a volleyball to earn a living.
<<TRIGGER WARNING FOR SELF-HARM
This plus my untreated bipolar is the reason I attempted suicide in middle school over a 78. Every other grade on that report card was an A. I honestly wish I was exaggerating.
I can say that the “lowered expectations” trick works, though, because my younger sister did that and got rewarded with money if she got anything above a C, something my mother swore she’d never do for me because “good grades are expected, not rewarded”.
Unbelievably, my parents and I get along pretty well, now that I no longer live with them.
Aw, dear one, I am sorry. I’m glad you’re past those crap-hole years & hope things continue to be steady for you.
I identify so hard with this and should probably check out that book. I once got a B on a calculus test and my parents told me I clearly hadn’t been studying hard enough and would have to quit my job if I didn’t want to become a total failure. All the while with B & C achieving siblings who were mightily praised! I was so confused and so unhappy, and when I finally got the courage to ask my parents about why they had that double standard for me alone, ten years after the fact, the response was “Well you were the one who was going to get As anyway, and we didn’t want to make them feel bad by hearing you were doing better” ?!
There was also the time that I got a 34, not a 36, on the ACTs and they made me retake it.
My earth-shattering low grade experience was in 5th grade. I had done spectacularly in school every year through 4th grade. However, that year, our first teacher left for another job, and the rest of the year was split between two well-meaning, but ultimately unqualified “permanent substitutes.” The one we had for most of the year mostly just let us play with pattern blocks and Magic cards, rather that actually learn anything. My first set of grades from the next year was pretty much all Cs.
In one way it was good, because it got me to stop thinking my life would be ruined if I ever received less than perfect grades. In another way, it was bad, because it was really hard for me to get back on track to proper school habits.
That sounds a hell of a lot like what I tell MYSELF about grades, god. My parents have never been remotely like that, but somehow I gave myself a complex and if it’s less than the top grade band, I register it as a ‘fail’. Even though I went to schools where a ‘C’ was a pretty good grade for a lot of my peers and getting a ‘B’ in maths (as it happens) was something only the top few were even *able* to do due to the papers given out. (Foundation papers capped at a C and I was on a Higher paper, which only about the top twenty students even got). Swear to god, it’s the unhealthiest mindset ever. And it really pains me to know parents buy into it.
The first time I got straight A’s, my parents ranted at me that my teacher said my handwriting was bad.
I think I was harder on myself about grades than my parents were. I got my first B in fourth grade math (an 84), and at one point I forgot to do a homework assignment and apologized to the teacher, crying.
Then of course I got to high school, left IB finally, and forgot how to give a damn about grades until college, where I had multiple meltdowns over a final project last semester, to the point where my mother had to remind me that my grades are less important than my mental health.
….I guess I AM harder on myself re: grades than my parents are.
Anyone else experience that other aspect of grade-shaming, from classmates? In elementary school (and sometimes middle) my teachers would hold up the papers of A-grade students and show them to the class…cue everyone making fun of me mercilessly for being a “smarty-pants,” “teacher’s pet,” etc. and resulting in me trying to show off every time I got a bad grade so I could be “cool.”
…it’s a fucked-up world.
(To be clear, definitely not trying to humble-brag for getting an A in 5th grade social studies, and parental disappointment is the absolute worst, but…the way I socially learned to feel ashamed of trying hard and doing well in school is something that makes me kind of resentful to this day. And bad at tooting my own horn when I actually need to as an adult.)
YES. I moved to a new high school in junior year where there were classes were waaaay easier. Our history class was graded on a curve so I always kept quiet about my grades because I’d usually get 100% (or more if there were bonus questions). Then one day my teacher decided to let the class know I’d gotten 105% on a test to which somebody immediately yelled, “So SHE’S the one who’s been ruining it for the rest of us.” The angry looks I got from most of the class as the New Girl who Ruined Everything still haunt me 11 years later.
That happened to me as well. I remember desperately trying to cover up the big red “A” on my papers when the teacher handed them back- my version of The Scarlet Letter, haha.
My parents called a conference with my teacher because I got a B in math on my report card despite having A’s in everything else.
I was in third grade.
I didn’t get another B for a semester until my last year of high school.
I would have given my left eye tooth for a B+ . Like others on these comments, I am dyscalculic. I remember crying over math not understanding why I couldn’t retain anything. And then I finally stopped giving a fuck what my parents thought because obviously they couldn’t relate to anything I was going through.
That is the same with me, but I think my parents are secretly glad she has a life and doesn’t put as much pressure on herself.
I was very lucky that I had an underachiever twin brother. We are equally smart, but I’ve always been a better student than him. (“Always” until college, that is. But we go to very different schools.) We were both homeschooled from the end of 2nd grade until 9th grade, but in high school, my mother was so busy getting into screaming matches with my brother over his grades that she wouldn’t be TOO concerned about an occasional B on my part. (That, and at least in 9th grade I could blame it on her: “Of course I’m getting a B in Social Studies! We have to write timed in-class essays! I never had to write anything timed when I was homeschooled!”) But I put enough pressure on myself, anyways. When I got the results from taking the SATs in 11th grade, with a perfect 800 in Critical Reading and Math and a 750 in Writing (I never really did get better at timed essays), I wanted to retake it so I could do better in Writing and my parents were the ones who suggested that that might be a tad bit ridiculous.
Of course, there’s still pressure there. After my first year of college, I came home in May and had to admit that I had basically had a complete mental breakdown over the last month of the semester due to severe anxiety that completely screwed me up academically. My mother’s initial response was to get upset that I hadn’t talked to her about it before, and “if talking to me about these things is so awful, I guess I’ll just stay in a hotel for the summer, because I’d hate to put more pressure on you with my presence.” After she calmed down enough to decide that maybe moving out wasn’t the best response to her daughter’s admission to struggling with anxiety, her response was, “Well, your grades had better go up next semester.” Thanks, ’cause it’s not like that’s exactly what I’m anxious about to begin with. My grades did not, in fact, go up; rather, my depression and anxiety got way worse and I wound up failing the entire semester and I am now suspended from school. Still haven’t had the courage to tell her.
Bloody hell, thanking my lucky stars for my lovely parents after reading these comments – I mean, they would have sat me down and been really disappointed if they thought I wasn’t making an effort, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to have them go out of their way to make me feel bad. Hugs to you guys.
Thankfully, my parents were kind. Or maybe they just realized they didn’t need to worry because I was hard enough on myself. The only ‘crying in the school bathroom’ experience I ever had was when I got a D on a math test. Spent the whole lunch period crying in a stall because I got a bad grade on a math test. In sixth grade.
Except spelling. My mom was convinced I would never get a job when I had all As but got Cs on my spelling tests. She ignored my promises that I would spell check my job applications.
My parents were fine about my grades, but my Maths teacher was the real problem. She would regularly shame me in front of the class (“Everyone did really well – A and A* grades all round! Except for you, who got a B”) and, though I’d always hated maths in general, I began to really despise it. I asked to be moved to a different class where the average grade was a B or a C, so I’d be on the same level as everyone else, but she refused. Weirdly I still have dreams/nightmares about being back in her class, even nine years on… however the satisfaction I get from rarely, if ever, having to use any kind of advanced maths in real life (equations? Nope. Trigonometry? Never.) makes me wish I’d stood up to her a bit more and been able to prove I wouldn’t need half of the so-called life skills from maths classes.
I always knew EXACTLY which grades would draw questions — a B was okay, but a B- was going to raise questions. Once, I elaborately doctored a transcript in high school by white-ing out the “-” next to a B. I knew the GPA had to add up (as if they would have checked?!), so I ALSO white-ed out the “+” next to one of the As. Then I went down to the corner store and ran off a copy so it would look smooth/original/legit. It was the saddest lie.
Same here. My mum still thinks I am !
I’m pretty sure this was my older brother’s plan through middle school, which worked wonderfully for him. Unfortunately, I had a truly annoying tendency to have easily-impressed teachers, so I couldn’t pull that off. Fortunately, my college was one of those that don’t really give “grades” until you got a transcript, so my mother never had to see the shameful C in Physics and D in Directing (which…had a story behind it) until it was way too late. (The fact that my mother never went to college, and my father got an AA from the Community College of the Air Force, helped as they had no expectations at all.)