{"id":86131,"date":"2015-05-28T16:32:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-28T20:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=86131"},"modified":"2015-05-28T16:41:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T20:41:24","slug":"growing-pains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Pains"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_86136\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86136\" class=\"wp-image-86136\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\" alt=\"Huslig_Uoverensstemmelse\" width=\"600\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg 2288w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse-1024x770.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-86136\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From <i>Punch<\/i>, 1877.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cDo you realize,\u201d my friend Susannah said to me, \u201cthat we\u2019re getting too old to be precocious?\u201d This was at the start of the sixth grade. Susannah was, in fact, very precocious: politically minded, she had styled herself as an outspoken feminist, organizing an abortive boycott of a substitute gym teacher\u2019s sexist softball practices. \u201cI know,\u201d she said sympathetically when she saw my face. \u201cThat\u2019s how I felt, too\u2014I almost cried. It\u2019s a tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This was dramatic, but Susannah wasn\u2019t wrong. In some ways, the sands of time were running out, and our glory days were behind us. Soon, behaviors we\u2019d once been rewarded for would be recognized as obnoxious, or precious, or odd. We\u2019d have to hide them rather than flaunt them. What had been advanced was now arrested. Students at this point were honored for work and accomplishment rather than for quirks of early development. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It was Margaret Fuller who wrote that \u201cfor precocity some great price is always demanded sooner or later in life.\u201d Fuller, of course, knew from precocity, to say nothing of feminism. She was reading by three and translating Virgil at five. Okay, she was actually more of a prodigy. But if her precocity was of the genius sort, she was right that garden-variety youthful precocity\u2014as distinct from early success\u2014is a particularly tricky sort of growing pain.<\/p>\n<p>Not many people are prodigies; many are precocious. It requires nothing more than normal smarts, a little indulgence, a little exposure, a little encouragement. It\u2019s the easy rewards that are so hard to lose, of course. But maybe aping adulthood is only appealing when it does not infringe on real adulthood. When one is on the cusp of it, things can become grotesque, or threatening. For every child star flickering out before our eyes there are a million moderately clever kids turning into dull, functional grown-ups. I am struck often by what <em>nice<\/em> people all my precocious schoolmates have become. It\u2019s anticlimactic\u2014but that\u2019s probably the opposite of tragedy.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cDo you realize,\u201d my friend Susannah said to me, \u201cthat we\u2019re getting too old to be precocious?\u201d This was at the start of the sixth grade. Susannah was, in fact, very precocious: politically minded, she had styled herself as an outspoken feminist, organizing an abortive boycott of a substitute gym teacher\u2019s sexist softball practices. \u201cI [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[18278,7073,13158,18276,18275,219,18277],"class_list":["post-86131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-child-stars","tag-margaret-fuller","tag-memories","tag-precocious","tag-precocity","tag-school","tag-sixth-grade"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Notes on Precocity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on growing up precocious.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Growing Pains by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 28, 2015 \u2013 \u201cDo you realize,\u201d my friend Susannah said to me, \u201cthat we\u2019re getting too old to be precocious?\u201d This was at the start of the sixth grade. Susannah was, in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-28T20:32:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-28T20:41:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2288\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1721\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Growing Pains\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-28T20:32:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-28T20:41:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\"},\"wordCount\":370,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"child stars\",\"Margaret Fuller\",\"memories\",\"precocious\",\"precocity\",\"school\",\"sixth grade\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\",\"name\":\"Notes on Precocity\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-28T20:32:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-28T20:41:24+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein on growing up precocious.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/huslig_uoverensstemmelse.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/growing-pains\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Growing Pains\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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