I knew we were doing something right when my kids starting quoting the more tame Monty Python skits at each other.
“It’s the machine that goes ping!” Alex announced as the text-message bell on my cellphone went off one night.
Without missing a beat, Isaac replied, “That means your baby is still alive!”
Passing on your taste in entertainment is one of the great bonuses of being a parent. Watching your children appreciate something you love is almost more fun than first discovering it yourself. If you consider yourself a geek, though, passing on your quirks is almost a duty.
Geek culture has become more mainstream lately, with the success of shows such as The Big Bang Theory (science geeks) and Game of Thrones (fantasy geeks). Being a geek, essentially, is living in the cross-section of enthusiasm, intelligence and obsession.
It’s not about knowing everything; it’s about knowing everything about how a greatsword was forged in the medieval era, or how chemical reactions are responsible for how food tastes, or about the social conditions in late 19th-century Canada and their effect on prominent authors.
That, and boring your friends and co-workers as you enthuse on and parse your favourite topic.
My husband and I are proud geeks in a number of areas, some of which we share. We both enjoy Monty Python and other absurdist satire, and read and watch a lot of science fiction and fantasy. (I’m Team Picard, for the record, with a soft spot for Kirk.) Clayton is a history and geography buff. I’m a literature fanatic, especially women writers, and yes, I was on the debate team.
As our kids grow, it’s fun to watch them figure out their own interests, and geek out about it.
Alex is a Lego nut. He spends a good part of each day building, and his creations are often intricate and always creative. Alex specializes in building three-dimensional versions of his favourite comic-book and video-game characters — compound geeking, if you will.
Isaac tends to live his geek life in his mind. Like his father, he loves maps, but his first and deepest love is dinosaurs. As he’s gotten older, the typical childish enjoyment of the terrible lizards has been replaced with a deep interest in the science of paleontology.
When Isaac was six, we took the family to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. Isaac buttonholed a museum volunteer and peppered the young man with so many detailed questions that the volunteer dragged a paleontologist out of the lab to answer them. The scientist talked to Isaac for 20 minutes, and left grinning.
I used to think Naomi was the odd one out. She is a natural athlete; her current obsessions are surfing, skating and gymnastics. She enjoys a good laugh and loves to read, but I hadn’t seen her get her geek on.
Over the past few weeks, though, I’ve noticed the way she approaches sport is similar to how her brothers geek out over other things. I’ve watched her practise a move over and over again in the yard, at the pool or on the ice. She has focus and enthusiasm, and a need to know everything about her obsessions. It may be blasphemy to mathletes and debate-team members everywhere, but I think she’s a sports geek.
As for Eddie, he’s still a toddler. We have yet to see if his love of construction vehicles turns into something geeky. He did recently build a structurally sound house with his Duplo and then crow about it to everyone in the family. It’s a start.
For you non-geeks, come join us sometime. Being ridiculously excited about eating pie on Pi day (March 14) or going to Comic Con is a shortcut to childlike joy in adulthood.
Or, in Geek: The excited squealing isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
