"You're stooooopid"

I used to openly tell people I was a "dumb blonde". It was a good ice-breaker and it was useful for those ever-so-frequent embarrassing moments. I always thought that it was better to be more on the average/stupid side than smarter because some people just didn't like being around smarter people. Now, when someone calls me "stupid" or a "dumb blonde", I get really self-conscious. Lately, I've been nervous that I've represented myself as naturally an unintelligent person when really I am pretty smart. But I was just a kid back when I gave myself that label, right?

Little children call each other "stupid" all the time. I heard it in my old 3rd grade religious education classes, the open enrollment ultimate Frisbee club I'm in and in the hallways. Children are told not to call each other names or be mean, but do they really understand the implications they might be having on other people's lives.

When someone told me I was "stupid" or a "dumb blonde", I laughed it off or tried to embody it and then surprise others when I did something smart later during the year. Does a child's simplistic look on the world and people in it, shape and create who we are that early in life? No matter how hard my mom tried to tell me I really was smart, I just kept the dumb blonde label because I made more friends and that's just who I was to people.

Simplicity can be great when you run into a rough problem or situation, but maybe simplicity hurts more than it helps in this situation. The greatest thing about growing up may be that we can re-invent who we are.