As a GeekDad, I’ve made an effort to steer my kids on the way towards geekiness, not by indoctrination but by simply exposing them to the geeky things I love and the reasons why I love them. To my delight, both kids have embraced geek culture, to the point where — just for example — when I returned home from San Diego Comic-Con a few months ago, they asked if they could go with me next year.
My daughter just turned nine (my son is nearly eleven), and is in third grade this school year. For Back-to-School Night last month, the kids in her class interviewed one-another and wrote up the results to be hung on the wall for parents to read. Check out the photo below (click on it for large-size) of my daughter’s interview, with identifying info redacted.
Interview by anonymous third-grader. Photo by Jen Blum
There’s lots of good geeky stuff there, including that her favorite singer is Weird Al, her favorite TV show is Voltron Force, and that one of our cats is named “Gandalf.” (Those first two items change on a fairly frequent basis, which will come as a surprise only to those without children.) And not everything there is accurate — for instance, she was not born in Boston. But there’s one line (circled and exploded) that leaps out at me:
Her dad inspired her because he is a geek.
If that isn’t an epic geek-parenting win, I don’t know what is.
