The Secret to Getting Straight ‘A’s in School

In 4^th grade, my son got the assignment to draw his family tree.  As a member of a blended family, this assignment was just daunting!  Not only do you have to draw the tree (good luck), but then you have to get in front of the class and explain it.  Oh, no!  Often, the assignment will include dates and pictures of your relatives.  Great!  In our case, bio Dad disappeared years ago and my son was adopted by his ‘real’ Dad.  So, the family tree always became a bush and looked something like this:

For some reason, my son continued to get this assignment every year of his academic life, including his college years.  So, every year we would pull out the original poster with the family bush on it and submit it again….and again…..and again….and again.  Early on, we realized that this assignment was the gateway to an easy ‘A’.  Why?  People never wanted to question him about his family.  It made them uncomfortable so they just gave him an ‘A’.  We have laughed and laughed about this assignment that it has become a personal challenge to see how many times we can utilize it and still get an ‘A’.  As he aged, we would often get this same assignment and be asked to write essays.  Again, we have submitted the same story and, no matter, the educational institution, no one wanted to address our family structure.

I often wondered if people felt that our blended family was contagious.  If one addressed it, could you catch it?  Would your family divorce?  The entire concept of a divorced family and the idea of remarriage strikes fear in the heart of many.  So, they give you ‘A’s so they can avoid confronting the subject.  My message to all the kids of divorced families is to write the stories of your families with pride.  You can raise your GPA at the same time.