He didn't much like school, my husband. Got out of there fast. Chafing for life. Reckoned the world could teach him more. There was this one teacher, though. She told him, 12 years old, rebellious and randy, that the girls he was so cockily catting around were not the ones he'd want to marry. He brings it up now and again. And I cringe every time - because it's outrageously offensive, and because, in recognising the vile sexism of her lesson, I have to also recognise its grain of truth. He married me, but he would never have fancied me then.
I was the first person at my school to get a pair of hi-top Chuck Taylors, my dad was an artist and my mum a lesbian, and so because these things counted for something at my liberal, inner-city intermediate, I hung out with the cool kids. But I wasn't one of those girls, the hot girls, the girls the boys all hankered after. I know I wasn't because my friend was, and I was sick with envy.
Who decides who gets to be popular? What does it mean to be cool? In the requisite blandness of a school hall, on an early summer's day at the end of last year, I attended my son's primary school graduation concert, and I saw just how painfully early popularity and coolness are established. There was a lot of horrendous lip-synching, a lot of dire interpretive dance, and a few moments of genius. There was also a slide show: each child held a sign on which they had written what they want to grow up to be.
All Blacks and Silver Ferns mostly, the odd actor, a couple of "don't know's". It was the roles they already so clearly filled though that made me curious. How, at age 11, could it be so patent who were the jocks and who were the nerds? How was it already decided who were the outsiders and who were the leaders of the pack? And now my son is at intermediate, those labels are even more firmly affixed.
