You see us
as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal.
Correct? That’s the way we saw each other at seven o’clock this morning.
We were brainwashed…

Here’s an exercise:  try explaining what the words jock, nerd, dork and geek mean to your children without resorting to stereotypes.

A commute on the train the other day found my husband and I attempting to define these words to our curious children without falling back on”kids that like science and math” or “kids that play sports to the point of exclusivity” or “kids that aren’t ‘cool‘.”  Because, well, we want our kids to like science and math and play sports and yes, even think of themselves as cool, whatever their definition of cool happens to be.  And though labels such as geek and nerd have enjoyed a kind of reverse-cool renaissance, semantics are tough to…