Contemplating Motherhood

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Parenting and Being the Weird Kid

I watched the video below and I found myself thinking about how I was the weird kid growing up, how that shaped me, and what is and isn't considered a bad way of being weird. 

I saw the first tiktok that Brittany talks about prior to her covering it so I came up with my own conclusions. I watched the video out of curiosity on how her take may compare to mine and I think this is one of those instances where we have arrived in the same conclusion. 

Brittany talks about the difference between being Ethical and Unethical weirdos. And I remember making this distinction as a kid as well but with different terminology. I differentiated the weird kids as the cool weird kids vs the WEIRD weird kids. So the Ethical Weirdos (or in my case the cool weird kids) are the kids that might be neurodivergent, have unconventional tastes and interests, or might be gay  or perhaps part of a culture or demographic that isn't as common in that particular setting. But generally speaking, even if these kids are a little odd, they typically have basic socialization skills to find like minded weirdos and not be in the second category of the Unethical Weirdos. The Unethical Weirdos (or in my 13 year old's terminology, the WEIRD weird kid) are the kids that are deemed weird because they legit have social problems. These are the neckbeards, the incels, the school shooter types, the people who instigate problems with everyone, the people who don't understand boundaries and sexually assaults other kids etc. The lady in the Tiktok said something along the lines of how as a parent, it isn't just your job to love your kid unconditionally but you need to make sure that you correct problematic behavior so they aren't the weird kid who struggles to make ANY friends because of how poorly socialized they are. Now, what this lady means by weird and what she means by fitting in can be up to interpretation, especially since judging by her content she seems conservative leaning, but I think there is a lot of truth to what she's saying if we draw the distinction between the ethical weird kids vs the unethical weird kids who are the product of poor parenting and socialization. 

 I think growing up, especially in elementary school, I was generally an ethical weird kid but there were some unethical elements there as well as elements that came from not so great parenting. And I want to explore that a little bit throughout the years. 

Elementary School: I went to a Christian private school in Texas. This is very important context because I think the setting alone made me stand out as a weird kid even before I did anything odd. 

• I was the only South Asian kid in the school: Most of the kids didn't have any exposure to South Asian people from the area of Dallas I was from and I think while I didn't encounter a lot of overt racism, a lot of it was just them not knowing how to deal with that information because they were like 8. I had a number of kids who asked me which tribe I was from when they heard I was Indian. Some kids thought I was Mexican but the Mexican kids didn't know where to place me. I remember I wore something cultural for Halloween and told people I was a princess and they said I was a weird princess because I didn't wear one of the specific Disney Princess costumes (not because they thought there was something wrong with my dress or that it was ugly). My mom used to put oil in my hair and when I told that to the other kids, they said I was gross and smelly even though I washed out the oil in the shower after leaving it on for a couple hours. So far, this isn't anything hateful, just kids being uninformed. But the hateful stuff came from how religious this school was. My parents sent me here for the education and didn't put any thought into the way they expressed Christianity here. I was one of the few non Christian kids and I would hear about people talking about how non believers would go to hell. I remember seeing an Atheist kid getting bullied and thinking that I cannot express that I'm not Christian let alone Hindu here. And I was also pretty lost when it came to Bible study and church ettiquitte because I was just not exposed to any of that stuff at home. Like I remember one time I asked what you would wear to church and the whole class looked at me like I was stupid. So yeah, I think in these situations, I was labeled as the weird kid but it wasn't because of anything that I was doing wrong. And you know what, when I was in social situations with mostly other South Asian kids, I didn't socially struggle nearly as much because people didn't have the initial reaction of categorizing me as weird. 
• My Parents Were Over Protective: I remember kids going to summer camp and never being able to relate to any of that stuff. I remember begging my mom to let me go to camp and she would freak out on me. I remember not being allowed to go to sleepovers or any playdates because my mom especially didn't trust any parents that weren't also South Asian so that stunted my ability to make friends outside of school. I remember sleeping in my parents' bedroom every night because that's pretty common in South Asian culture rather than having your own individual room. I remember my mom would insist on doing everything for me, from helping me shower at age 6 because she thought I couldn't take a proper shower by myself, picking out all of my clothes to where I had no choice on what to wear, to literally spoonfeeding me because she thought that I would make a mess. And I remember pushing back against all of that because it felt ridiculous and like a hit to my sense of independence and sense of confidence. Also, the kids making fun of me at school when I revealed little things about my home life like how my mom wouldn't let me watch Harry Potter (not because it was Satanic but because she thought it would give me nightmares) didn't help.  I realize I'm mainly talking about my mom in these situations but my dad, though not actively overprotective, would basically stand by her and watched this happen. 
  • I think some of the stuff is cultural differences where we see parents doing everything for their kid as an expression of love rather than a way to stifle their sense of independence. You see the same dynamic when it comes to dealing with elders as well. And I think this is a product of collectivistic culture where interdependence is emphasized more than independence compared to more individualistic cultures. But I think that both parenting styles can be taken to the extreme to where it's unethical and negligent. On the individualistic side, things can get negligent when you expect your kid to be self-sufficient before that's developmentally appropriate. On the collectivistic side, things can get negligent where you do everything for your kid to where they don't learn the proper skills they need in order to be a functioning person. Like I don't think that helping your kid shower to where you teach them proper washing techniques into the age of 6 or 7, though a little late imo , is the worst thing in the world (but I have an American cultural bias). But that dips into the negligence and as a result unethical territory when you're doing this to a 10 or 11 year old. 
  • Speaking of cultural differences, while playdates are a thing, South Asian people don't really do sleepovers. So the idea of just dropping your kid off at a strangers house freaked my parents out. And I think there is an added layer of uncertainty because you're in an environment where the people don't share the same background as you and you don't know what is and isn't normal. Later on, after like the age of 10, I was allowed to do sleepovers with other South Asian kids where my parents knew the other parents well. And now that I'm older, I can kind of get why my parents were like this both from a immigrant parents perspective but also a safety perspective. The safety perspective is that if you are dropping your kid off at an unknown adult's place, you never know what they could be exposed to and unfortunately, it's not a unique experience that some people get sexually assaulted in these situations. And in my opinion, I'm not judging the parents for being hesitant in these situations, but I do think there is a better way to handle these things. I remember being frustrated about not being able to go over to people's house after school or spend the night because it felt like I couldn't develop relationships outside of school, that I was being isolated from my peers, and I got this reputation of being the weird kid with the over protective parents. And I think rather than having a strict rule about not being able to go anywhere, it's better to talk to the parents for a little bit to get a general vibe and also communicate with your kids on healthy boundaries and sex ed (i.e. no one should be touching certain parts of your body and if anything like that happens, tell your parents  even if someone threatens to harm you if you tell and you're scared). I think that's a much more ethical way to go about dealing with situations like this because you're not isolating your kid, you're teaching them discernment and boundaries, and you're allowing them to learn through experience and exposure. 
    • And speaking of having conversations around boundaries and sex, another reason why I was labeled as weird is because I didn't have any conversations around sex. I was labeled as the weird innocent kid because sometimes I didn't know when something was an innuendo or something sounded wrong. Thankfully I never assaulted a kid or did anything sexually weird. I do remember some kids saying things like *you're not allowed to touch me, that's inappropriate*. I didn't do anything super weird but I remember not really understanding that and why touching might be inappropriate. In those situations, my brain just went to *I'm just going to continue poking this kid on the arm to annoy them* because I had an age appropriate sense of naivity to a certain extent. Which is why, when kids describe a sexual assault, there is a very high chance they are telling the truth because kids don't just make up things like that and it doesn't naturally occur in their brain unless they got exposed to something. 
      • So in other words, while I wasn't a weird kid unethically due to the choices and actions I took in these types of situations, I think there is an element of things being unethical or just poorly handled due to a misunderstanding of cultural queues on behalf of how my parents decided to parent. 
• Not understanding boundaries or conflict resolution: This is an area that I think I was unethically a weird kid when I was in elementary school. I think I was labelled as annoying partially because I didn't understand boundaries (going back to the arm poking example). I also didn't understand when or how to stand up for myself (instead my parents told be that if I got picked on to tell the teacher but that made it worse because then I was a tattle tell). So to other kids, I kind of became a doormat at one point. While other times, rather than standing up for myself, I would find myself lashing out over little things and crying easily because of issues at home, which would result in some kids not really wanting to be around me. 
• Unconventional Interests: So here I think there is an ethical and unethical component. I think there were situations where I just had unconventional interests that were harmless and fine but the kids were just unnecessarily mean to me. I liked Pokemon and people thought that was weird since anime wasn't as much of a thing at the Christian private school. I liked the Powerpuff girls and kids thought I was childish for that (which doesn't make sense since we're all like 8 lol). I also liked more tomboyish things despite being a girl and kids thought I was weird for that. But the part that I think dips into unethical category is how I had this *I'm not like other girls* attitude where I thought I was better than other girls for not having girly interests. I think part of this was people picking on me for being a weird kid (so I was trying to reclaim it), part of it was internalized misogyny because of various cultural factors, and part of it was my own mother who modeled this attitude as well. But yeah, I think that I was pretty insufferable at times and I don't blame people for thinking I'm annoying. 

Middle School: I went over to a different private Christian school except in this place, the student body was more diverse and wasn't particularly religious. As a result, I didn't get the same degree of people having the knee jerk reaction that I was weird. That made me socially mixing up with other kids so much easier. Plus, none of the kids knew me so it was kind of like a fresh start. 

• I was considered weird because of my unconventional interests. I was still insufferable but not so much to where I struggled to make friends. It didn't socially handicap me. I had my own group of friends and I remember as a result being considered one of the "cool weird kids" instead of the "WEIRD weird" kids. This was around the time I was really getting into anime, fanfiction, various fandomsm, Tumblr culture etc. I do think that I would have benefitted from some more guidance and parental involvement in this area. My parents weren't involved because they're boomers and didn't really know the ins and outs of internet culture or the bullshit that was out there. Thankfully, I didn't get groomed by a predator in Omegle or fall down an alt right pipeline. But I did unfortunately discover pro-ana tumblr and I think that gave me permanent brainrot. 
• Overprotective Tendencies and Mental Health Issues: I still didn't do a good job in nurturing my friendships outside of school because of my parents over protective tendencies. I don't think that contributed to people thinking I'm weird but it did stunt me a little socially and made it difficult to open up to people to develop deeper connections. I was also dealing with things like anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, and social anxiety. But it didn't cross into the unethical territory where I was harming people around me as a result. A little cringy, emo, and awkward sure. Did people think I was weird as a result, sure. But I wasn't incel level dangerous and it didn't socially handicap me so badly to where I had no peer relationships. 
• I was considered ugly: Part of it was racism. I had a South Asian guy I like talk shit behind my back and say that he "only dates white girls because brown girls are all ugly." Part of it was my mom not letting me do things like shave, pluck my eyebrows to where I didn't have a unibrow, wear makeup, and just really discourage anything that involved having an interest in my physical appearance. She was afraid that it was going to make me vain and distract me from school. And I'm glad that I was forced to develop a sense of confidence outside of my looks. But at the same time, I would have handled this differently. I liked how the video did talk about ensuring your kids fit in and that sometimes it means buying them the cool clothes, makeup etc. Peer acceptance is important at that age and while I understand wanting to teach you kid to rise above that, I think it's also important to meet them where they're at. Like we can discuss Eurocentric beauty standards and why women are expected to be hairless later on. Let's just do your eyebrows at age 11 when you're getting a unibrow so that you don't have to deal with the headache of the kids at school bullying you. It's a very quick fix lol. Genuinely, I think the eyebrows alone (and maybe a small amount of makeup) would have saved me the trauma of kids picking on me for my appearance.  At the same time, I can understand telling your kid no sometimes when they try to fit in if they're asking for something unreasonable like a designer bag that costs a thousand dollars or hell, when they ask you to buy like 10 Stanley cups. In those situations, you need to have a bigger conversation with them regarding consumerism and status symbols and point out that the kids hyperfixating on this to where they are picking on other kids is them being losers. 
  • And I also think that taking care of your appearance and paying attention to fashion to a certain extent is also about learning social queues. I'm not saying you gotta wake up at 5 am at age 14 and serve looks every day. But I don't think that having an interest in doing things to improve your appearance should be discouraged unless it's getting to a point where it's harming your mental health and your ability to keep up with your grades. Like I wish I had the mom who didn't yell at me for straightening / curling my hair, who actually taught me how to do my makeup without looking crazy, and who didn't think I was superficial for not wanting to wear certain types of clothes that honestly made me look weird. I was also a little chubby and when I wasn't in my school uniform, this lady basically made me dress business casual and like a mini- middle aged woman who might be a part of a Christian cult because she thought that the clothes that other teenagers were wearing either didn't flatter me or she thought that it made me look like a whore. And yeah, that made me look weird to other kids because me dressing like a middle aged woman socially made me look strange. 
• What / Who I Considered "WEIRD weird" (aka unethically weird): People definitely called me weird in middle school but the majority of people who called me weird didn't do it in a bullying way and more of a "she just has unconventional interests but she's like cool weird." The only people who bullied me for being weird was this group of judgemental teenage girls and a small group of teenage boys who thought I was ugly (which is only really a total of 6-10 people out of like the 75ish people in my private middle school).  But there were people who the vast majority of the school thought was weird in the not so great way.
  • One girl, we'll call her Leah, was one of the stereotypical horse girls. But the problem wasn't that she liked horses. That's not what made people hate her initially. The problem was the way that she would be possessive over her friends and get jealous when they wanted to branch out socially outside her, the way that she was casually racist, and the way that she would blow up at people and instigate conflict. Her dad also worked at the school and she would try to use that to her advantage to get people she didn't like in trouble. She also would cuss out and yell at her parents which made her look like a brat. She was also a bit overweight, probably had the tism, and was questioning her sexuality. While I wouldn't say that those 3 things were the reasons why she was hated and considered weird, I would say that those 3 things were very low hanging fruit to bully her for people who didn't like her for legitimate reasons. And I think that we (myself included at times) were very wrong for that. I get that I was literally 12, but if I could go back, I would tell myself that just because you don't like someone, that doesn't give you a free pass to behave unethically towards them.  It got bad to where she had to leave school and be homeschooled for like a year to get away from that environment. I think looking back as an adult, I don't hate this girl. I think she was neurodivergent and her parents didn't know how to handle that and as a result, at times they were too soft on her / didn't address her behavior AND she doubled down on her negative tendencies when other kids would react to her initial actions. The reason why she was possessive towards the new kids was because it was like a fresh start for her to bond with kids who didn't know her reputation. On one hand, you could say that was manipulative. But on the other hand, I do think it's a response to being bullied from before and trying to grasp at connection. But then, that sense of possessiveness became a self fulfilling prophecy that pushed those same people away. 
  • There was this other boy, we'll call Chase, who was considered weird because he was creepy towards a lot of girls. Like I'm talking violating consent and getting handsy, staring at people, and talking about people in weird sexual ways. I also have a distinct memory of this one time when he was like 10 when he bit someone so hard he drew blood. Even once he got to middle school, he had some violent tendencies.  I remember that we got a talk from the adults about how we shouldn't exclude people or bully them (low key it was about this guy since he was always being left out) and I remember having the biggest eye roll because there was a legitimate reason why we thought this kid was weird and why no one wanted to talk to him. But we were labeled as being immature kids who were bullying him. Anyways, years later I found out that he raped a girl in college and got kicked out and his parents are in denial about the whole thing. 
  • There was also another guy who was in my friend group (sort of because I eventually distanced myself from this group because they were toxic) who was considered the weird kid and the butt of the joke. He was also kind of chubby and not considered the best looking (and we shouldn't have made fun of him for that). He also had violent tendencies and was creepy towards girls because of how desparate he was (think where my hug at but on steroids). Despite working and having a glow up, he was still really insecure and creepy. He also stalked one of my friends and in high school, would make a bunch of weird sexual comments / advances despite my friend shutting him down multiple times. I also heard that in college that he drugged and raped a girl and that he was part of one of those frats that were notorious of date rape. 

Highschool: I changed schools once again and this time, I went to the nerdy public school where you could get an associates degree from a community college at the same time you graduated high school. As a result of that and where I'm at in Texas, let's just say that my school was filled with black gay nerds who were politically involved. 

• I wasn't labeled as weird in this environment. I think we were all a bit weird to where no one was considered weird regarding things like race, sexuality, gender expression, or unconventional interests. I remember overhearing a conversation where even the vice principal was joking on how our highschool was like the island of misfit toys compared to the regular highschool in our district.
• I wouldn't say I socially thrived here either (or was considered "cool") because I had other mental health stuff going on at home to where I wasn't particularly social/ was shy and socially anxious. I didn't really find "my people" here, and I just didn't always mesh in terms of values an world views. I also had a lot of shit going on at home that made it difficult for me to open up and develop deeper relationships, or feel safe/ mentally stable enough to pursue romantic connections. I didn't have any actual adults guiding me through the grief process of losing a loved one which led me to get really isolated from my friends at the time. I had a year or so where I didn't really have friends, but it never got so bad to where I was ostracized by my peers and considered weird. 
• There were a few unethically weird people here and I think they all fall into the neckbeard/ potential school shooter category. 

College: I went to college in a conservative, predominantly white and wealthy college. This was also during the pandemic. 

• I felt like I was most judged for being weird in this environment. Bro, this was worse than how weird I was considered in elementary school and how traumatizing middle school can be. I was also just surrounded by questionable characters who might have been considered "normal" by larger societal standards (again, rich, white, conventionally attractive, relatively social) but they just moved unethically. I felt incredibly isolated at this time and COVID made things sooo much worse. It's not like I experienced bullying, people being rude, or people blatantly disrespecting me, but I did feel ostracized and like I didn't belong AT ALL. And honestly, most regular people I went to college with or people who visited me from outside of campus recognized how strange this environment was. Genuinely, I felt like the weirdest person there and after I graduated and I was around regular people, I realized how much of a social experiment my college experience felt like. 

Worklife: I'm mainly around normies here. But I think a lot of normies can get into strange territory when they start believing in dumb shit like conspiracy theories or when people are just politically incoherent and/or apathetic. 

• I don't think anyone considers me weird in the workplace but I do feel out of place at times. I definitely don't think that I can be my full self at work. Here are some factors: 
  • COVID socially stunting me mixed with a little social anxiety + a touch of the tism. >> basically mental health
  • My leftist/ socially involved tendencies where I'm like thinking deeply about every little thing and I'm clocking in with an existential crisis like 90% of the time.
  • And the last part is how I don't really care about traditional motivators like saving for a house, making more money, and building my life around a romantic partner and kids.