By Maria Rodriguez
The Price Of Genius
The world marvels at young prodigies, giving them fame and abundant unnecessary attention they don’t need nor possibly comprehend. By doing so, we steal from them the privacy essential for their personal growth and development needed so they can feel comfortable with making mistakes. These children are burdened with the demanding duty of a role model when they themselves are in need of one as well. They are judged by outsiders hastily and unreasonably for their actions, in pursuit of perfection —as we assume and expect them to be.
The world tends to be less forgiving to a prodigy, when in fact, it was the world (adult world to be exact) that deemed the child a “prodigy.” Mistakes must be made in order to learn; it must be understood that they are children, human children. A gift must be cherished and nurtured, but mustn’t be overworked; they must be allowed to experience childhood and be children; being clumsy, making mistakes, having fun.
A child shouldn’t be burdened to intensely develop their gift; after all, it is called a “gift” — it’s meant to be enjoyed by the receiver as they cherish and develop it. The world deems these children as geniuses, and when these children grow up to not live up to these worldly standards, they’re just abandoned, ignored by the world. They are suddenly thought of as dumb, and worthless, leaving them with issues caused by society’s cruel judgment. Society, the world, and humanity aren’t exactly the same. Society is judgmental, humanity is human, the world is an environment, a place.
Deeming these children as geniuses then later abandoning them is a cruel thing for the world to do. They’re just children; fame it’s not something they asked for, but then get used to, for which they have to pay the price for when they grow older. This is the price of being deemed a “genius,” what do we do about it?
