A Childhood Memory...of Why People Suck

I just recalled an incident from when I was eight, which reminded me why I sometimes get really annoyed with people. It also reminded me that adults act like children, or children imitate adults, or people just maintain the same sort of irritating behavior throughout life and only seem more mature because they change their presentation. The memory:

I was in Mrs. Honig's Hebrew school class one evening in third grade. I was reading a passage (in English) and suddenly had the idea so pronounce the "c" in "scissors" when the word came up in the reading. To see if people were listening. To see how they'd react. Well, the decision was made in a split second, I pronounced the "c" and the reaction was incredible. The entire class JUMPED to correct me. Twenty-five eight-year-old Jewish kids, all trying to beat each other to be the first to tell me I was wrong. To look at each other with smug superiority.

I know I'm viewing this through the lens of the slightly socially awkward eight-year-old that I was, but I think that's a far fairer lens than seeing how an adult would have perceived the behavior of the children. They might have been glad the kids knew how to pronounce the word. They might have been glad the kids were listening. They might have been mildly perplexed that one of the better readers in the class had mispronounced a word everyone else knew, but they would have been glad that I had learned from my classmates. But adults seem not to observe the behaviors of kids as other kids do, and I think they therefore miss out on the subtleties of the exchange. Kids do have a pretty intricate social world, and they can be very cruel to each other. A child's comment that may seem innocent or just funny to adults may seem horribly demeaning to other kids. And I think those kids are the ones who get it. The adults don't. And the attitude I got from the other kids in third grade I've seen over and over again in every stage of life. People are incredibly eager to jump on each others mistakes, correct each other, win arguments for the sake of winning, not for learning or teaching or commonly arriving at truth.

If you don't find this story compelling, let me give you another:

I was seeing a high school show with my friend Monica in fourth grade. As we entered the high school she said to me, "Maggie, I think some of the more popular girls are here, so if I see them, can we pretend we didn't come together? I'm just becoming accepted by them, so, no offense but, you know..." And I said, "Oh sure, I understand." And I did.

Perhaps Monica didn't show great virtue, but her actions bothered me so much less than the attitude the third graders gave me in Hebrew School. Again, my perspective let me know where Monica was coming from and the attitude she directed at me. She didn't dislike me or disrespect me, life was just easier if the popular girls liked her, and being with me in front of them would make that a much more difficult goal to achieve. I thought I might do the same thing in her shoes. I actually give her points for saying that directly to me. I think that showed she respected me, that she was able to let me know exactly why she might not stand with me if they came over. She wasn't passive-aggressive. She was assertive. And I have to give it to her for that.