You all got me re-thinking my own experiences in school. Although I have three older sisters, I was terrified of going to kindergarten. I held onto the chain-link fence that encircled the kindergarten room and would not let go. My mother ended up dragging me home muttering about what a stubborn brat I was. I also cried all through grade school. EVERYTHING made me cry. Teachers had me pegged as "sensitive." My therapist has suggested I finally felt safe enough to cry when I was at school.
Because my father was a teacher, it was understood we would do well in school and go on to college. I can also see though that I have always attempted to be perfect because I believed it would make my borderline mother ok. She told us that if only we weren't such irresponsible little brats, things would be better and I believed her. On the other hand, she would accuse us of having "swollen heads" or of being "too big for our breeches" if we did too well at anything. My sister told me that she threw a race in track in high school because she didn't think she was supposed to win.
I think teachers should have been a bit suspicious of all my crying. They might have been. My first-grade teacher used to stop by our house to chat with my mother. I just figured it was because she had taught a couple of my other sisters as well. Now I wonder if she was checking up on things. I was clothed in hand-me-downs in elementary, but so were the rest of the kids. But in high school, I think someone should have maybe noticed that I wore the same white shorts and purple sweater and a pair of sneakers with holes worn in the soles all winter. I did ask my high school English teacher years after I graduated if she had suspected anything amiss. She said no and she had trained as a social worker, so...
Anyhow, thank you all so much. Your responses have been so helpful to me.
Because my father was a teacher, it was understood we would do well in school and go on to college. I can also see though that I have always attempted to be perfect because I believed it would make my borderline mother ok. She told us that if only we weren't such irresponsible little brats, things would be better and I believed her. On the other hand, she would accuse us of having "swollen heads" or of being "too big for our breeches" if we did too well at anything. My sister told me that she threw a race in track in high school because she didn't think she was supposed to win.
I think teachers should have been a bit suspicious of all my crying. They might have been. My first-grade teacher used to stop by our house to chat with my mother. I just figured it was because she had taught a couple of my other sisters as well. Now I wonder if she was checking up on things. I was clothed in hand-me-downs in elementary, but so were the rest of the kids. But in high school, I think someone should have maybe noticed that I wore the same white shorts and purple sweater and a pair of sneakers with holes worn in the soles all winter. I did ask my high school English teacher years after I graduated if she had suspected anything amiss. She said no and she had trained as a social worker, so...
Anyhow, thank you all so much. Your responses have been so helpful to me.