So I learned the "don't brag" rule very early on, but not from my mother (who was always very frustrated that I was as modest as I was)
I learned to brag specifically from my mother! When I was a kid and about to start a new year of school, she would always tell me to make sure the teacher knew how smart I was, that that was what led to success. It didn't matter what the other kids thought of my showing off. Only the teacher mattered.
A few years later, when she was feeling threatened by my intelligence, showing off, argumentativeness, and surprise!intellectual needs that she wasn't prepared for, it was all about how GOD didn't care how smart I was and on judgment day he was going to send me to heaven or hell based on how NICE I was to my mother.
Unfortunately for her, she had already told me it didn't matter what other people thought of my showing off!
She had also told me that showing off was what led to success at school, and told me that success at school would lead to scholarships, which would be the only way I could go to college. So the more she verbally abused me and told me I was on the fast track to hell, the more "show off -> make good grades -> afford college -> get the hell out of this house" became the dominant paradigm in my brain.
So that backfired. :D Like many things she did: she was really not prepared to have a child like me.
Note 1: I never would have seen any connection at alll between what Nellie Oleson was doing and what I was doing. Nellie was being a class snob; I was making sure I could go to college.
Note 2: I've put the pieces together as an adult and can tell you exactly where my mother's reasoning came from. She always said a teacher would look at the classroom on the first day and make subconscious decisions about who the A students and who the C students were. She's not wrong! Unconscious bias in teaching is totally a thing.
And she said you wanted to make sure you got pegged as an A student on day 1, because it was hard to impossible to overcome the bias later on, just by being quiet and submitting good work.
Again, not wrong! But since her knowledge of psychology and interpreting other people's behavior was so hit or miss, it's a priori kind of surprising that she figured out unconscious bias like this.
Well, in this case it's because she was the victim of unconscious bias. She was 1) Hispanic in a very racist society, 2) undiagnosed dyslexic. She had a handful of teachers that decided that she couldn't make better than a C, and one that decided to outright fail her, no matter what work she submitted.
So she decided to give me a leg up by preparing me for this, especially since I did have the brains that I could hit the ground running aka showing off. (I don't actually know if my sisters got this lecture.)
Now, I neither had an undiagnosed learning disorder nor was I ever the victim of anti-Hispanic racism (literally no one other than my mother ever even thought of me as Hispanic), but she had no way of knowing that she had a learning disorder, 100% believed I was going to be targeted by racists at school in the same way she was, and wasn't wrong even without those two factors. Who knows what unconscious bias the teachers would have had? And besides, showing off did make my school experience better.
For another child, it might have had the effect of alienating them from their peers and making them lonely or even bullied. For me, showing off was the single best part of an otherwise stressful, intellectually starved, and sometimes verbally abusive childhood. :D And it did help get me a lot of support, special treatment, letters of recommendation, etc. from my teachers in high school, which did help with the whole scholarship endeavor.
and I thought it would be entirely consistent if that were part of your reasoning as well!
Lol, no! That would have been the total opposite of my reasoning. Talking about my accomplishments was one of the few conversations I was prepared to have at the drop of a hat! Even when the other party wasn't necessarily. :P Talking enthusiastically and frequently about my accomplishments actually continued well past the age when certain other showing off behaviors had tapered off.
(The one exception is that if you mention her violin playing, she WILL correct you that it's really VIOLA.)
no subject
I learned to brag specifically from my mother! When I was a kid and about to start a new year of school, she would always tell me to make sure the teacher knew how smart I was, that that was what led to success. It didn't matter what the other kids thought of my showing off. Only the teacher mattered.
A few years later, when she was feeling threatened by my intelligence, showing off, argumentativeness, and surprise!intellectual needs that she wasn't prepared for, it was all about how GOD didn't care how smart I was and on judgment day he was going to send me to heaven or hell based on how NICE I was to my mother.
Unfortunately for her, she had already told me it didn't matter what other people thought of my showing off!
She had also told me that showing off was what led to success at school, and told me that success at school would lead to scholarships, which would be the only way I could go to college. So the more she verbally abused me and told me I was on the fast track to hell, the more "show off -> make good grades -> afford college -> get the hell out of this house" became the dominant paradigm in my brain.
So that backfired. :D Like many things she did: she was really not prepared to have a child like me.
Note 1: I never would have seen any connection at alll between what Nellie Oleson was doing and what I was doing. Nellie was being a class snob; I was making sure I could go to college.
Note 2: I've put the pieces together as an adult and can tell you exactly where my mother's reasoning came from. She always said a teacher would look at the classroom on the first day and make subconscious decisions about who the A students and who the C students were. She's not wrong! Unconscious bias in teaching is totally a thing.
And she said you wanted to make sure you got pegged as an A student on day 1, because it was hard to impossible to overcome the bias later on, just by being quiet and submitting good work.
Again, not wrong! But since her knowledge of psychology and interpreting other people's behavior was so hit or miss, it's a priori kind of surprising that she figured out unconscious bias like this.
Well, in this case it's because she was the victim of unconscious bias. She was 1) Hispanic in a very racist society, 2) undiagnosed dyslexic. She had a handful of teachers that decided that she couldn't make better than a C, and one that decided to outright fail her, no matter what work she submitted.
So she decided to give me a leg up by preparing me for this, especially since I did have the brains that I could hit the ground running aka showing off. (I don't actually know if my sisters got this lecture.)
Now, I neither had an undiagnosed learning disorder nor was I ever the victim of anti-Hispanic racism (literally no one other than my mother ever even thought of me as Hispanic), but she had no way of knowing that she had a learning disorder, 100% believed I was going to be targeted by racists at school in the same way she was, and wasn't wrong even without those two factors. Who knows what unconscious bias the teachers would have had? And besides, showing off did make my school experience better.
For another child, it might have had the effect of alienating them from their peers and making them lonely or even bullied. For me, showing off was the single best part of an otherwise stressful, intellectually starved, and sometimes verbally abusive childhood. :D And it did help get me a lot of support, special treatment, letters of recommendation, etc. from my teachers in high school, which did help with the whole scholarship endeavor.
and I thought it would be entirely consistent if that were part of your reasoning as well!
Lol, no! That would have been the total opposite of my reasoning. Talking about my accomplishments was one of the few conversations I was prepared to have at the drop of a hat! Even when the other party wasn't necessarily. :P Talking enthusiastically and frequently about my accomplishments actually continued well past the age when certain other showing off behaviors had tapered off.
(The one exception is that if you mention her violin playing, she WILL correct you that it's really VIOLA.)
Hee. Good for her!