I was a child Hermione

Was this you? Eager in your seat, waving your hand frantically to answer a question about something you read about and understood and wanted to make sure your teacher knew that you understood? Me, too. I was a little Hermione, so proud to make my teachers pleased with me, so happy to not be in trouble, to be a good girl.

I had a thirst for knowledge like Hermione as well, but that mostly took place in the books I read on my own for pleasure. The read it, memorize it, test over it, repeat, however, was strictly to please the adults in my life. And they loved me, until I stopped pleasing them.

It wasn’t even like I tried to stop pleasing them. I just started to drown. And instead of helping me—one even commented that I needed “mental help” in front of a class during the year I was very depressed and looked it—they scorned me, even taunted me, bullied me in front of classmates.

Maybe they thought I was on drugs. I’m sure my exhaustion showed and made me look like it. I never did take any, though, not even pot, which is actually embarrassing to admit since everyone else seems to have smoked it. What I did do, though, was this: AP courses, a full time job, two sports, a dozen extracurricular activities (four of which I led as an officer), sibling care, housework, and four to six hours of homework a night. When you do the math, you quickly realize that I had no time to sleep.

A counselor—on behalf of the concern of a friend, not a teacher—finally sent me to a therapist, who sent me to a psychiatrist, who promptly said I had “overachiever syndrome” or maybe “disthymia” and gave me a prescription for Paxil that very day. He talked to me for maybe five minutes.

I wish someone would have simply given me permission to take a nap.

I think Hermione knew better. She gave up the time turner when she realized it was too much work without anyone telling her she was taking on too much. She felt free to disagree with her teachers, and she quit classes that she thought were a waste of time. She was the “cleverest witch of her age.” I was not clever; I was merely obedient. If my daughter ever ends up like Hermione, I hope she retains that self-confidence and desire to learn for herself, not for anyone else.

I don’t want to raise a people pleaser. For the past ten years, I’ve been trying to get out of this mode, to learn to please myself instead—and I’m still not sure how to do it. It still crushes me when people I like, especially people I love, are disappointed with me, or if I can’t run our Girl Scouts troop because I homeschool, work full time, run our 4H club, teach in a co-op, run our local homeschool group… And I still stay up all night quite often to do as much as I can, suffering for it the following day. Will I ever learn this lesson?

I keep this in mind even when Wood Sprite asks my opinion. “Well, what do you think about it?” She’s gotten to where she knows that I will ask that and gives me her opinion first now, then asking for mine. Every day I tell her it’s hers that counts, and that if I dislike something that she likes it’s okay. If she dislikes something I like, it’s okay. If she doesn’t want to do gymnastics anymore, it’s okay. And above all, I love and approve of her no matter what she does because I love her for WHO she is, not the things she accomplishes.

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