You're somebody special, too.

I don’t know why this story sticks in my mind, but it does. Most of DC is familiar with the exploits of Jessica Cutler – the Washingtonienne who spilled her social secrets on her blog and was subsequently discovered and fired from her Hill job because of it. There was a Washington Post article on her shortly after it all came out, parts of which have always stuck with me – particularly this little section:

From first grade through junior high, Jessica spent one day each week in a special program for gifted and talented children. Jessica and some of her schoolmates describe the program as pure free-to-be-you-and-me fun: Nobody graded them; nobody gave them homework; nobody cared if they finished anything.
Those classes left a mark on Jessica. "They tell you, 'You guys, you are smarter than most people,' " recalls Jessica, whose closest friends remain the girls she met in that program at age 7.
Jessica finds it curious that she and several of her gifted classmates became underemployed slackers with attitudes. She wonders if that traces back to the lessons they learned in the gifted program. "You kind of create your own moral universe," Jessica says. "It's like, well, I like myself. If other people don't like me, then whatever. I'm out of here."


Now, I was one of those kids who were part of my school district’s gifted and talented program. My best friend is a girl I met through that program when I was 9, and I am still friendly with some of the people who were in the program as well (not naming any names here). My husband was also in a G&T program in his school district.

I wonder how much of Jessica’s statement about the influence her G&T universe has a grain (or more than) of truth. I remember sending this article to a friend who was in the G&T program with me, asking him whether it sounded like our own lives in any way. Not the whole sexual escapades part of it – but the entitlement/superiority complex and devil-may-care attitude that I know I feel moments of (although some would probably say more than just moments ;)

Just a thought.