"You're too old for this"
Dec. 30th, 2011 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terajkIt's really hard for me to ask for directions--partly because I don't understand spatial language very well, but mostly because, when I was little, adults shamed me out of it. "You're too old for this"1 the teachers on recess duty would say when I asked them for help finding a friend on the playground. (My friends, BTW, were actually very observant, clever and helpful: they figured out how to wait for me outside our classroom if we were going to lunch or recess.)
A poor sense of direction runs in my family. (With their powers combined, I am Captain Planet.) I've seen people ask for directions: a lot. My mother has asked for directions at one gas station, then asked for them again at the next gas station. So my feelings are irrational. But they're there.
The other day I had to ask for directions to the juvenile graphic novel section in the library. (I saw the movie The Adventures of Tintin; I've never read the books before.) This was extra hard, as I was looking for something associated with children, but I did it. And the librarian was very nice and took me to the place--I think I can find it myself now! Which is a good thing because, Internet, CARDCAPTOR SAKURA WAS THERE. (I didn't even know we had Cardcaptor Sakura.).
1. In Mental Retardation: A Historical Reader (a book at my library about disability whose editors didn't annoy me), there's a short paper from the early 20th century wondering how to categorize "feebleminded children." The writer decides that, since typical children are compared to other kids their age, it would be most helpful to compare "feelbleminded children" to younger typical kids. In other words, the concept of "mental age" (e.g. the idea that an 18 year old has "the mind of a seven year old") is arbitrary as hell.
A poor sense of direction runs in my family. (With their powers combined, I am Captain Planet.) I've seen people ask for directions: a lot. My mother has asked for directions at one gas station, then asked for them again at the next gas station. So my feelings are irrational. But they're there.
The other day I had to ask for directions to the juvenile graphic novel section in the library. (I saw the movie The Adventures of Tintin; I've never read the books before.) This was extra hard, as I was looking for something associated with children, but I did it. And the librarian was very nice and took me to the place--I think I can find it myself now! Which is a good thing because, Internet, CARDCAPTOR SAKURA WAS THERE. (I didn't even know we had Cardcaptor Sakura.).
1. In Mental Retardation: A Historical Reader (a book at my library about disability whose editors didn't annoy me), there's a short paper from the early 20th century wondering how to categorize "feebleminded children." The writer decides that, since typical children are compared to other kids their age, it would be most helpful to compare "feelbleminded children" to younger typical kids. In other words, the concept of "mental age" (e.g. the idea that an 18 year old has "the mind of a seven year old") is arbitrary as hell.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-30 08:15 pm (UTC)I imagine the gender thing makes it harder to ask, too -- do you get a lot of people snarking about how women just can't find their way anywhere?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-30 11:55 pm (UTC)do you get a lot of people snarking about how women just can't find their way anywhere?
You know, people don't say that to me. (But then, I so rarely ask for directions.) There are a lot of people I read as female who approach me when I'm lost/confused, or who I ask for directions on rare occasions. Also, most of the teachers on recess duty were women.
But I think being exposed to that stereotype doesinfluence this somehow--or even, more generally, with the idea that women need lots of help and protection. I'm sure being read as a non-threatening female is part of why so many people pull over/ask to take me home. In a Victorian literature class I learned how lots of upper-class white women weren't allowed to go anywhere without being escorted by a man, I told my professor that I would've set the woman's movement back about 30 years. I thought it would be cool if having an assistant/escort was unremarkable...and then I felt like a bad feminist. (It should also be unremarkable not to have an escort, too, but it would be nice if the world were better-built for more kinds of people in general.)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-07 05:05 pm (UTC)Oh, dear. Indeed.
& yes, indeed again. :/