Annemarie,

You wrote:
> My husband was not a gifted child and really does NOT want to deal with the possibility that our daughter might be. He wants her to be "normal" and has brought that up several times. I was a gifted child, and I am terrified that my daughter is going to have the same negative experience in school that I had.

Isn�t this sad? Your daughter sounds like a wonderful child � that she is very intelligent (and a nice person) should be a source of real happiness for everyone in the family, not a cause of fear or anxiety.

Your husband�s reaction is, sad to say, not unusual at all. I wonder if there is any way to get him to see what would have happened if Tiger Woods� or Thomas Edison�s or Michelle Kwan�s parents had had the same reaction? �Normal� is nice (we all looked over our newborns anxiously to see if they had all the normal fingers, toes, etc.!), but far-above-normal is even nicer.

I know that for some reason most Americans have trouble dealing with the idea that �above normal� is actually a very good thing; but the one area in which everyone does seem to get it is sports. Might sports analogies work with your husband? If your daughter turned out to be another Michelle Kwan, surely your husband would not worry that she was not �normal�? Can you help him see that having a child who is gifted intellectually is just as much a cause for joy as having a child who is gifted athletically?

After all, both the ancient Christians and the great pagan philosophers of Antiquity held that the divine spark in human beings, the sense in which we are made in the �image of God,� is our ability to think, our rational faculty. Whether from a secular or a religious perspective, being above normal intellectually is a gift: to reject that gift is to demonstrate great ingratitude to God or to Nature.

You also wrote:
> I have to remind him that I don't care about any other student in his class or in our daughter's class. My concern is what is best for her, and my obligation is solely to her welfare. Sorry if that sounds harsh...

No, it does not sound harsh, it sounds like a parent. It�s your job, probably the most important job you will ever have, to worry about what is best for your own child, not everyone else�s child. You have an obligation not to hurt their children, but you�re not doing that. Every single child needs at least one (hopefully two) adult(s) who care overwhelmingly about her. None of us can solve all of the world�s problems, but we can try to protect our own children.

And, if everyone actually did that, the world would in fact have many fewer problems.

I�m sure your husband is a decent man who just has trouble seeing that a child who is a bit different from him is not a problem but a gift. I know how stubborn we guys can be, but I hope that the joy that you take in your child is not diminished by dealing with all this and that you can help your husband to see that he too should feel joy and not anxiety at her being above normal intellectually.

All the best,

Dave M. in Sacramento