I want you to know I saw the look of distress on your face as I closed the door of the daycare this morning.

I recognized it immediately, which is why the extra hugs and kisses before I left for work.

I used to look like that too. I was the rare child that started hating school in Kindergarten, and spent every school day of the next 13 years (K-12th grade) smiling on the outside (most of the time anyway), while inwardly counting the days until it was over.  The difference between your experience of school and mine is that up until this year, you absolutely LOVED school.  You liked doing your homework, and looked forward to challenges and writing reports.  I started noticing a subtle shift the closer we got to Christmas break, though.  Assignments would slip through the cracks, here and there.  You quit putting in the same effort you did before, and getting you to work through things went from the breeze it was to a trying experience of tears and half-hearted effort.

Any inquiries as to what had changed were met with shrugs, and nearly whispered "I don't know"s.  Up until last night, when comparing an F on a random assignment with a long list of A's and B's on tests given the same week, and I realized that the two pictures didn't mesh, and I called you on it.  I told you that we could work this one of two ways:  I could go the punitive route, and just punish you for the bad grade, or we could talk about what led up to that, and see if we could find a way to stop this from happening again.  Much as I said yesterday, I can't help you fix it if you are not honest about what's going on.  Even though, after it all came out in a low defeated voice while staring at the accumulated dust at the bottom on my dresser, I don't know if this is something that can be fixed.

At the ripe old age of ten, you have begun that trip into the realm of the girls that don't want to seem too smart, lest they not have any friends.  I had so hoped you wouldn't have to go through this.  But as I watched you develop anxiety about school (the likely source of the bathroom issues and the resulting taunting which only made everything worse), I knew at some point I would hear this one admission that I wanted you to avoid.  That I thought women and girls had left behind in the 20+ years since I left school.

I purposely chose this semi-suburban environment because I wanted you to have a different academic experience than the one I had.  Inner city schools were okay for smart girls, but a great deal of support was needed to keep girls from becoming socially isolated because the other kids weren't sure what to make of them.  I aimed to not move while you went through elementary school so that you could make, and keep, the same friends, building up a set of social skills that I never really developed while we moved from place to place.  I didn't expect that to develop into kids that knew your weaknesses, and took obscene delight in pointing them out to you at every opportunity.  I figured because you were conventionally attractive, you wouldn't catch even 1/10th the hell I caught going through school for not being attractive enough.  I didn't realize until other people started pointing it out that you have a lighter version of almost my exact same face, along with the same big, coarse just barely manageable hair that does exactly as it pleases, which is usually the one thing that you DON'T want it to do.  How well I know that story.

You are a girl that loves math and science, who currently wants to be a teacher when you grow up.  I smile and tell you that this is wonderful, and you can do anything you want to do.  Internally I fight a war between encouraging you, and fiercely wanting to protect you from the rough waters that await a girl interested in STEM fields, especially as you prepare for your final year of elementary school next year, and from there prepare to navigate the far more treacherous territory of middle school.  I worry about you losing the sweet, funny, quirky nerd that you are to the jaded, outwardly tough, bravado spouting street kid that the surrounding neighborhood seems determined to turn you into.  I am divided between being awed by, and afraid of, the fact that as small and thin as you are, you really don't take any crap from any of the kids that pick on you because they are bigger than you, mostly because I told you not to.  My own experiences with being routinely bullied left me determined that my own children would never have to put up with the cruel jokes, snide remarks, and occasional physical confrontations that I was told to "ignore, and they will leave you alone"  (the biggest lie kids are told), however, in this age of strictly enforced Zero Tolerance policies, I fear your efforts to stand up for yourself will end in a flurry of suspensions that, rather than keep you from being a victim, might get you labeled as a troublemaker.  Which, by the way, is what started happening to your brother in middle school, which was so frequent by high school, that it was one of the many contributing factors to him dropping out.  Which is what I DON'T want to happen with you.

You have many more days of school to go, my darling daughter, and I will do the best I can to teach you, guide you, and help you learn how to get through them.  I can't guarantee you I will know all the right things to say and do to encourage you, and I know that as much as I would like to, I can never shield you from  all of the negativity that will come your way.  Nor should I attempt to keep you too sheltered, as you will need to learn how to deal with less than ideal people and situations.  But know that I do love you, and I am always willing to try to do whatever I can to make your journey a bit smoother (short of doing everything FOR you, but you knew that already), or at the very least, help you make sense of whatever is going on around you.  I think I can do that much.

I hope this helps.

Do you know the difference between nerds, geeks and dorks?  Being a nerd goes beyond simple intelligence; it is the possession of a great fountain of occasionally useless knowledge about a wide range of topics without the filter needed to know exactly when to share what.  Geeks are usually enthused about one or two specific subjects, about which they can talk to you, non-stop, no matter what other topic is being discussed.  Dorks are usually intelligent, but missing certain key elements of information, will argue loudly, and wrongly, for whatever the point is that they are trying to make.   Rolled eyes and requests to "Shut up about it already!" be damned.  The common element that draws them all together is a lack of social skills beyond what is minimally needed to function in society.  The pursuit of information for information's sake is the highest priority; interacting with people is an inconvenience that must be dealt with only when absolutely necessary.  This over abundance of information, the ability to not just apply it correctly (most of the time, anyway) but translate that into phenomenal test scores, often at the expense of developing social intelligence can get people labeled a lot of things.  For the sake of this post, I'll just focus on the name I am most familiar with: the Nerd.

I know of whence I speak.

I am currently on my fourth decade as a nerd, having learned to read at four years old.  I can geek out about certain subjects, as can most nerds, but I don't enjoy debate, and can read at least some social cues, so I narrowly escape the dork.  When I get interested in a subject, any subject, I can be a somewhat obsessive researcher, just so I can feel confident enough to discuss the subject with anybody that asks about the subject once I bring it up.  I have been known to read a book, then if that book references another book or two, I might just read both of those as well.  And I can retain most of what I read.  Of course that means I have been known to accidentally lapse into TMI  (Too Much Information), giving people more information that they asked for or needed.  When I finally started noticing eyes glazing over (or looking around for a way out of the monologue),  the development of a shy smile and a little self deprecating humor to ease the tension from those accidental over share moments helped a great deal.

Social anxiety comes early for the Nerd.  Good grades and high test scores often come at the cost of time spent playing with other kids.  Parents that are not careful to make sure that kids have downtime and outside activities run the risk of building the perfect academic beast that has no one to play with at recess.  Then again, if a kid is both socially awkward and has no hand eye coordination, recess might turn out to be overrated.  I can remember many a day of getting picked last for every recess activity because everybody knew as well as I did that anything involving me and a ball was going to end in complete and utter disaster.  I was always the guaranteed "out" for the other team.  In Jr. High School (middle school, nowadays)  I was the kid that got a C because I at least dressed for PE.  Other than running laps, which I could do without tripping over my own feet, most of the time, any athletic  ability passed me at a clearance of 35,000 feet, which is roughly the altitude of most commercial aircraft, but I digress...

There is no one particular look to the Nerd.  They come in a wide variety of shapes, colors, sizes and hair lengths.  In fact, most clean up real nice when they want to or have to.  Key words: "WANT to or HAVE to".  The vast majority of the time, the Nerd couldn't care less what they look like to you.  They would rather be working on their latest project, testing a new theory or figuring out a tricky line of code.  If they're comfortable, they are generally more productive, and productivity means EVERYTHING to the Nerd.  Being made to look a certain way is a card best played sparingly, and only if absolutely necessary.  Some are actually quite attractive.  If they feel like making the effort.

The Nerd is the original non-conformist.  Conforming to what the cool kids did was always a lost cause, so why continue trying to play the game?  The Nerd was the first person to embrace the mantra Just Be Yourself, because imitating someone else was a fast road to disaster.  Many a Nerd can quote you chapter and verse about how they tried to  fit in at some point in their lives.  This was generally inspired by wanting to hang out with some group (Lest you think otherwise: Yes, Virginia.  There ARE adult cliques!) of people that were thought to be at or near the top of the social strata.  The Nerd would then change anything about themselves that was deemed unacceptable by the group: Hair, clothes, manner of speaking, conversation topics.  Whatever they felt they needed to do.  After a while, one of two things would happen which would prove the old movie cliche to be entirely true:  the group would find some way to push the Nerd out anyway, or the Nerd would figure out that not being genuinely themselves was not worth the hassle of keeping up an appearance acceptable to someone else full time.

Despite all this, the Nerd manages to reproduce.

I myself have given birth to two Nerds.  My son wasn't your regular academic go getter. Far from it.  But he did develop quite an affection for Manga and anime, which he follows on every medium available to him, and can give you more back story on any anime character than you ever asked for.  Although with his naturally argumentative nature, he can occasionally slip into Dork territory, his saving grace is a sense of humor that allows him to escape whatever verbal hole he digs himself into.  He will look into any subject he is actually interested in, enough to give himself some working knowledge of the topic so he can talk about it without sounding stupid.

My daughter came to Nerdom through school, the same way I and most of my fellow Nerds did.  A powerful combination of grades and test scores marked her entrance into the realm of the Nerd, and her recent passing of the Cognitive Abilities Test, or CogAT, which certified her placement into the Gifted and Talented program, solidified her place in the hallowed halls of the Nerdsphere.  I am getting her into the habit of looking up anything she has a question about, and trying to introduce the concept of reading for pleasure.  She loves math, and is almost insanely good at rapidly absorbing Math concepts, something I always had a hard time with.

In this generation, the Common Nerd is clearly evolving.  No longer content to be a shadow on the wall of popular culture unless he or she conforms to it, The Nerd is taking ownership of his or her own particular quirks, and letting the world know that they are in fact, good enough to play on the playground with the cool kids.  As is.  Witness the popularity of TV shows like the Big Bang Theory and game shows like Jeopardy, that not only entertain you, they challenge you to think a little.  The Nerd now exists outside of the classroom and the lab.  There are Nerd athletes, models, actors, artists and any other profession you can name.    My son is both a budding chef and a developing stand-up comic.  My daughter has a talent for dance and an interest in cheerleading.

And both children are conventionally good looking.  If and when they feel like putting in the effort.  Which I don't force them to do, unless there is a valid reason.  I know the rules.