Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
(Given our demographic at the present time, this Post may have more value as an insight into the lives of the child sent off to school today than it does to Readers who might recognize their own worldviews…whatever)
… gotta tell you guys! You know how, when I’m drawing a blank for ideas to build a Post on, I go surfing for images and such? (no, I’m sure I’ve old you about my approach to writing blog Posts before …. find an image, hear a song being played behind a commercial on TV, read the labels on the food products in the cabinets… the normal things people do to come up with ideas for Posts! Well, I do! Anyway, today I was feeling the need to write a Post, but had nothing. Well, actually I have a nearly complete Post that I wrote last night, the only problem is that last night was Wednesday night and not Thursday night as I thought… so that Post will have to wait for the week to catch up with it.)
So this morning, once I was able to accept that it was Thursday and not Friday, which is a lot like the moment that we realize that the blind date our friend set up was with a roger and not the scott we were hoping for…. I got to thinking back to high school days. Naturally I started looking for a memorytrail* to Thursdays, which lead to hamburger fricassee (the best of school hot lunches)… the next step was to search for images and who do I find in the image results page but our friends Kristi (Finding Ninee) and Stephanie (Mommy, for real). No! really! don’t believe me? here:
school lunch + hamburger fricassee
… no! I’m sure neither of them will mind… (then there’s that really cool one of a semi-high school Kristi… and Stephanie is looking quite proper… you have to scroll down about ‘three rolls’ to where you see a hamburger and a photo of 4 past Presidents… you’ll spot Stephanie first)
…and how cool it that? (follow the links on their images… very worthwhile reading)
…so, time’s up. Seeing how I always (try to) convey something of an insight into the Wakefield Doctrine with every post, allow me to suggest that, if you have small children (or a clarklike spouse) and they are exhibiting what appears to be ‘fear’, of doing something or going somewhere, at basis of most clark’s fear is the dread of ‘exposure’, …of becoming (by virtue of not doing something correctly, or at very least, as well as everyone else), found out. That is what makes a clark, (young or old, male or female, accomplished or hiding), say that they don’t want to do something ( something that you very well know that they would want to do). Help them by identifying with that sense of ‘no pants in front of the audience’… but, for godsakes, don’t invoke the, ‘well everyone feels like that‘! Unless you’re a clark yourself, you will not appreciate the degree of fundamental aversion to being held up before everyone as being… different and flawed. There are things that you can do (and, I suspect most of you who are identifying with this already do)… is to let them, (the clark in question), sneak up on expressing their concerns and providing the support (which is to say, reduce the pressure to perform and the time for them to come up with a strategy that they can get themselves through the first time…after they do, they will be fine.) your clark will thank you at some point.
* hats off to Lizzi, the Master of…. er, the Mistress of cool neologism
About clarkscottroger
“…which is a lot like the moment that we realize that the blind date our friend set up was with a roger and not the scott we were hoping for…”
Just wondering if the Roger you married ever takes comments like this to heart?
Otherwise…nuthin’s what i gots…
damn, if that’s your ‘nuthin’ I live in fear of your ‘something’
lol… I am fortunate in that Phyllis is a roger (with a secondary clarklike aspect) who is grounded in this here Doctrine here… she knows that not being a scott is not the same as not being as good as
LOL
This is why it is sometimes best that I don’t read. When Clark first asked me to date him, there was a Scott and a Clark in the running – need to ask him why me?
Hahaha. ..
How many times have I told ya I used to be a Scott? Some still live in fear….i feel kinda bad about that. …NOW…
I went to a Catholic school that didn’t have lunch ladies or real lunches. Mondays we could order McDonalds burgers (55 cents each). They would put the order in at McDonalds and someone would go pick them up. (Faculty. This was 1st-8th grades.) Wednesday was Pizza Oven pizza. 50 cents per slice. Thursday is the day few people bought. Moms came in and boiled hot dogs. Blah.
Hilarious you found those two with that search!
And also funny that you wrote a post about school lunch when we recently managed to get my youngest clark to finally buy his lunch at school. He was petrified, as you said. Not that he told me. He had plenty of reasons, but all were screens for I’M SCARED!
Guess this WD actually works. ;)
like I said, most parents (or at least the kind of parent that has whatever qualities it takes to hang out here) sense the truth of fear and tend to do the right thing… it’s just that the true source of (the) fear experienced by clarks can be hidden (and, the really sad thing is, it’s hidden not because the clark is not accepting the fear, it’s because even the youngest clark knows that it’s best to avoid standing out too much)
knowing that (about clarks) should help in communicating that, while fear can be overcome by doing the thing…. the clarklike nature of being the Outsider takes longer to change… or at least come to accept in ways that allow less tendency to self-limit oneself
ya know?
Yeah. I know.
Tres cool (and kinda funny) to see Stephanie and Kristi! How did their pictures/links wind up among picutures of food! LOL
Gonna go follow the links…..
Then I should come back and comment. About the fear.
I find your posts to be deep and interesting. Gotta sit down and read through your old posts too when I get time!
Nice read :)
thank you… (one thing about the posts here: a) they almost always are about our little personality theory and 2)some are pretty strange, but I have some awfully talented friends that, writing among them puts a touch of readability to what you’ll find…
I was fond of the ham, apple butter and biscuit day. The only good thing about going to school in Dry Ridge, KY.
Michelle
…damn I was watching netflix: ‘How the States Got their Shapes’ (got nothing to do with being a clark, right?) and the episode was on Kentucky and West Virginia… or regular Virginia… got kinda mixed up
hey! I’ve got an enduring childhood trauma from living in Kentucky!! what are the odds?
School lunches were 35 cents when I was in early elementary school; a carton of milk was 2 cents. White, whole milk only. A couple of times, I remember every class was called to go to the cafeteria during class, and we were all given a glass of orange juice. The school had received some government commodity, and they had to hand it out to us.
No hot lunches in my very small Catholic elementary school. We could buy soft pretzels for morning recess and drinks – orange, grape, or milk – to have with our packed lunch. The boys always drank their drinks at morning recess. No idea why I remember that.
High school we had “hot” lunches which were options like pizza, hot dogs on those rollers (as opposed to boiled – bleah), and things in cans that came out of a machine hot such as ravioli, spaghetti, etc. I believe it was Chef Boyardee and Franco American stuff. Kind of fascinating that the can vended hot. Getting them to your seat and opening them was a trick.
I’m beginning to see how fast things change… not only did ‘hot lunch’ at school mean meals cooked in the cafeteria kitchen…but I’m insisting on demonstrating my ancient quality…lol you want to hear about the real old days?
those hot lunches? in grade school you got milk… in a little glass bottle. no, really. glass
I definitely see Stephanie…can not find Kristi!