Mom, There Are A Lot of Stupid People Out There

I had the privilege of driving the Imp home yesterday. With her involvement in crew, Hubby picks her up. I really miss hearing about her day on our drive home. By 7pm after crew, she's not near as talkative as at 3, right after school. It was fun to hear her ramble about all her classes and such.

As she's describing her day she blurts out, "Mom, there are just a lot of stupid people out there...Either that or a lot of people who don't use their brains." The Imp is blessed with above average intelligence. Additionally, her strength is her ability to connect information. She easily transfer knowledge from one area/event to another. She sees the bigger picture. So the first thing I told her was that she needed to be careful about looking down on others. People aren't stupid just because they don't pick things up as easily or as quickly as you do. But she was talking more about common sense. She has friends that keep repeating the same behavior and expecting better results. She is NOT athletic and so I used that as a good comparison. Just like she CAN run, that is she's a competent runner, she's not in the top tier and avoids running if at all possible. She doesn't enjoy it because she doesn't excel at it {or does she not excel because she doesn't enjoy it?}. But I think many of the actions she's referring to are more often people not using the brains God gave them, or taking the easy way out. Ever since my girls were little (I mean little, little...like 3) when they got in a bind (i.e. trouble) I'd say, "Can you think of a different way of handling this situation?" or "How can you fix it now?" And by the time they were 8 or 9, when they would get into binds, they knew when they discussed it with me, inevitably, they hear, "Problem Solving 101...How could you have avoided this? How can you make sure it doesn't happen again?" So yesterday, I reminded the Imp and she started laughing, agreeing and marvelling that she hadn't heard it lately (a very good sign). Then I pointed out, not every parent does that. Many parents solve the problems for their children, so the kids never have a chance to practice problem solving so they really aren't very good at it. Her reply was that she learned to think things through to avoid getting into trouble with Hubby and me. "So our strict rules/expectations encouraged you to grow up?" The light bulb lit up above her head. She ended the conversation with "Yea, but there are still a lot of stupid people out there and I'm tired of dealing with them." [Sigh]
The Singer was in our local paper about her upcoming performance/competition at Rock the Universe. I think I'm more nervous than she is. Pray that her allergies clear up. Ragweed's out and she sounded all congested yesterday.