Tuesday, October 08, 2013

F is for Fantastic Failure



You can call it incredible stroke of luck or extremely gracious providence, but we have gone through seven years of our children’s education without them ever bringing home an F. 

Their progress and report cards have always been, we all unanimously agreed, exceptionally boring.

All that, however, changed yesterday.

Unlike my children, I started my education in the minor key. I was in first grade when I got my first F.  I can still recount the details of that day with painful precision.  Our neighbor found me under a large oak tree not far from our house, weeping and wailing from the top of my lungs, for, I didn’t get just one F that day – the first of many in my long academic career.  I actually got FOUR! 

Four Fs in one day! I genuinely thought that the world has come to an end.


Well, yesterday, the world came to an end, of sort, for one of our precious straight-A students.

Are you mad at me? The used-to-be-straight-A child asked, handing me the paper for teacher-requested signature.

Mad? No! Not at all. I paused, weighing my response. I am kind of… glad.


Glad?!!! How can you be glad about an F?!!! 

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