Okay, I am getting really tired of people who ignore or otherwise write off teenagers and young 20-somethings as being unknowledgeable, ignorant, or, even worse, potential trouble-makers. Without even talking to them. Yeah, there are some of those out there. And there are also some 52-year-olds around who leave a lot to be desired. Grok grok. Yeah, we know who one o’ those is, ya ugly ol’ bag. Grok grok grok.

Oh Froog, will you just shut up for once, for Kee-reist? Sorry about him. Er, well, maybe he is right… Anyway, I have a daughter who’s a 19-year-old college sophomore. Like most young people I know, she has a variety of talents and one of them is fiber arts. She is an *expert*. She specializes in knitting and I don’t mean simple scarves.* Mouse knits all *kinds* of things. Some recent interests include lace shawls and socks. She designs her own patterns. And she can spin her own yarn if she wants to. If The Planet Ann Arbor didn’t have an ordinance against keeping farm aminals in the back yard, I’d probably be out there scooping up sheep and alpaca poop. And who knows what else. Silk worms, to be sure.

When people who know how good she is at that stuff encounter me, they often ask, “Do you knit?” and/or “Did you teach her how to knit?” I usually stand there with my mouth open for a few seconds and stutter, “I know how” and/or “I don’t remember if it was me or my mom who taught her.” I do know how to knit. I can’t remember who first got her started with knitting needles but I doubt I had the patience, so it must’ve been The Commander. But Mouse is beyond both of us now. Er, at least she’s beyond *me*, I can’t speak for The Comm.

So why is it that so often when Mouse walks into an unfamiliar yarn shop with an old bag like me, they greet me warmly and ignore her? I mean, I don’t *think* I project the appearance of “expert knitter” and I *certainly* don’t exude the aura of “Mrs. Moneybags.”

My technique for deflecting shopkeeper attention from me over to the expert is to start asking Mouse what seem to me to be intelligent questions about yarns and techniques and patterns, etc. Intelligent questions or not, it doesn’t take long for *most* of them to figure out who knows what. But why do we all continue to judge people on their appearance?

*Not that there is anything wrong with knitting simple scarves! If that’s what you do, go for it! You are just about at my level! 🙂

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 25th, 2006 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.