That indefinable coolness

Yesterday was the talent show at my kids elementary school and my son did a little Tae Kwon Do routine and broke a board with his kick. It was tons of fun. (With a little bit of drama mixed in when he experiences his first bit of stage fright.) Though I volunteer at the kid’s school a little bit, I don’t often get the full depth and breadth of the elementary school experience the way I did by watching the talent show.

Here’s what struck me watching the talent show: some kids are cool and others just aren’t.

I know. Brilliant observation, right? That’s me. Genius at large.

But I found myself fascinated trying to figure out the difference between the cool kids and the not. For the record, I was never one of the cool kids. I was always too much in my own head. For too long I was totally unaware that there were cool kids. And then I was trying too desperately to be like them and failing. My daughter, who is nine, will suffer the same fate. I can see it happening already. I’m okay with it, I think. If my daughter was cool and super popular, what would I do with that? Would I know how to be the mother of a cool kid? I don’t think so. My son has a shot at it, I think. It seems to me that there are some parents who are very invested in whether or not their kids are cool. As for me, I’m very invested in not caring about it either way.

However, I am fascinated by watching it. Trying to figure it out. I guess it’s the YA writer in me–still trying to learn the rules of high school. Trying to study “cool” like I’m some sort of anthropologist. So, watching the talent, I was inexplicably aware of which kids have “it” and which don’t. And, furthermore, trying to figure out what “it” even is.

Here’s what I’ve decided: for boys, it has something to do with being tall. And coordinated. And probably tough. For girls, it has something to do with understanding the rules. With knowing how to manipulate and control other people, both girls and boys. With having power over other people. And I guess that makes sense–from and evolutionary stand point, I mean. Despite ten thousand years of civilization, we are all still tribal creatures, high school more so than any other time in our lives. And in the ancient tribe, the men who were tough in battle and best able to defend the tribe were the most valuable. The most cool. And the woman who were able to keep everyone else in line were equally valuable.

Of course, the problem is, we no longer live in tribes. So we must simultaneously prepare are children to survive in the tribe of high school and then to evolve to succeed in the (hopefully) more civilized world beyond school. In the end, what I’d most like my children to realize is that the “cool” you are forever chasing in high school fades away in the world beyond. Many of the most interesting, successful people I know were geeky rejects in high school, just like I was. On the other hand, I have good friends now that I have no idea what their social status was in school. They may have been the popular kids. They may have been the losers. It just doesn’t matter any more. One of my favorite movies from the early ’90′s was called How I Got into College. I’m guessing no one remembers it, because I think only twenty-three people ever saw it. But here’s my favorite line: “College is like a federal protection and relocation program for high school students.”