no one loves a genius child

No one loves a genius child.  Free him, and let his soul run wild.

I just finished watching a documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat on PBS that ended with this quote.  Not sure where it comes from.  It got my attention, not least of all because of the film's subject.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying my own daughter is a genius child.  But I'm also not saying she's not.  Genius is a damning adjective.  It means someone with power has noticed you, assigned you value, and publicized the value they have assigned to you.  Very dangerous, because then they can take it away. 

Being a parent really colors everything I think about.  I think about being Jean-Michel's mother.  I think about being the mother of one of his friends.  I think about being his friend and trying to help him stay alive in spite of it all.  I wonder what his experience really was of Andy Warhol and how Andy looked after him.

The thing about genius is... what is it?  I really don't think that anyone with integrity thinks of themselves as a genius.  They may feel and think passionately, obsessively, in ways they know others are not feeling or thinking.  But having this experience doesn't make someone feel themselves to be a genius.  I think they just think and feel and struggle to find ways to express that and share it with others.

I guess all this reflection is already captured by saying no one loves a genius child.  And, above all, children need to be loved.  The title of genius can rob them of that, as people just become mercenary.  Like the film observed, if you were Jean-Michel, you'd go to a party and people wanted to do drugs with you, get laid by you, just because you were the hot thing.

Watching the film also made me more aware of something that's been percolating more and more for me.  In the brief moments of reflection I steal, in which I am aware of what feels like the strange loss of my former self, mainly in terms of what I "do" (art, politics, parties, travel, New Things, etc) or rather, mainly in terms of what I no longer "do", I've started to understand a different importance to what I used to "do".  OK -- that was a totally confusing and crap sentence, but here is what I mean.  For example, as a teenager, I spent many, many hours on the phone with a very small handful of friends.  We did homework over the phone, we quizzed each other for tests, we discussed essay questions and research papers, and also lots about our parents and other friends and classmates.  Sometimes music, often literature, who knows what else.  What it seems like now is those conversations, and many other childhood/teenagehood experiences and relationships, really did lay the basis for adulthood.  Much of it seemed petty, but it became the rock that my adulthood is built upon.  That metaphor isn't really right.  It's like sedimentary rock for the wild jungle that has grown on top of it.

I guess I was thinking about this because it was so painful to get a glimpse of how much Jean-Michel needed his father's love, support, and approval.  And to see how well he handled the fucked-up racism that came with his fame.  And it just made me think about all of our beginnings and how they both help and hurt us.  I recognized so many of my creative, free friends in Basquiat's story and I can imagine my own daughter growing up to find that she is in some way a "genius child".  I hope I can stop that in its tracks, for her sake and for other children's too.  Because when you say one child is a genius, you are saying others are not, and that starts the whole cycle of valuing some people over others, and that is no good for anyone.

Peace,
Briana