Einstein's mother

Denise Little takes an unexpected look at the mother of the genius!

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The genius of Albert Einstein is legendary. His gift of intellect, world renowned. He was, by many accounts, a dyslexic. A dyslexic of distinction, if you will. The original Absent Minded Professor. I wonder about his mother, Mrs. . . Einstein. According to various sources, Albert did not begin to speak until he was three years old. Maybe five, or even seven years old, depending on the report. I remember our perplexity when our own son did not speak in full sentences until he was close to three. Just enough of a hold-out for us to consider some manner of assessment, when, on the very evening of this discussion, he broke his silence by asking, "Mom, do you think that dinosaurs live up in those hills?" What would Albert's first sentence have been? "Mom, how do you explain the time/space continuum?" His mother probably noted his clever first sentence in his baby book. Somewhere closer to the back cover than the front, no doubt! Did you know that Albert did not learn how to tie his own shoelaces until he was nine, or thirteen, or possibly not ever? My little fellow was seven or eight when he was finally compelled to commit the procedure of shoe tying to memory. It was not really a victory after all. To this day, at the first possible opportunity, new laces are looped into indestructible Granny knots of the highest order. He is a Podiatric Squeeze and Stuffer. He has not been grievously injured tripping on his trailing laces yet, but a lifetime is a long time to spend avoiding disaster! Did Albert's mother chant every morning, "Albert! Your laces! God forbid, you could smash your front teeth out! Tie your laces!"? Just wondering... I am positive that whoever invented Velcro was parenting a dyslexic. Photographs of Mrs.. Einstein's son throughout his life speak of a person whose appearance could best be termed "rumpled." He reminds me of that old TV gumshoe, Columbo. And my son. Tidiness eludes him. Shoes slough. Socks look like forlorn Muppets dangling disconsolately off of his toes. Knees are torn, patched, torn again, or scabby. T-shirts end up stretched and wrinkly before noon. His hair is his most distinctive characteristic. Einsteinesque. I know that one day Albert's mother said to herself, "There are worse things in life than having unruly hair. I surrender." It is those lose ends that combine to defy their best efforts to organize even their own person. In school, his teaching staff described Albert in less than stellar terms. Apparently nothing came easily, except, I suppose, Physics, when he finally got there. In the meantime, he could not remember the time's tables, he couldn't read very well, and spelling defeated him. Sounds familiar. It was even suggested that Albert might be mentally handicapped. His poor mom! Did she have the least recognition that her son's intellect was, in fact, beyond the beyonds? Or was she shaken and afraid, unable to trust the verity of her own observations? Did she ask herself, "How could I be so wrong?", or did she intuit, "How could THEY be so wrong?" Just wondering... Some say that Mrs. Einstein decided to home school her son, or at the very least, home tutor him extensively. Brave Mrs. Einstein. In my case, I resisted committing to home-assisted learning for my son. I felt daunted before I even embarked. I surprised myself. Over the past couple of years, I have spent a good deal of time trying to understand and assist with my son's specific learning difficulties. I have acquired an unusual bank of knowledge. I know a little bit about a lot of stuff, like the know-it-all from the Cheers bar. Hemispheric preference and dominance; Phonemic awareness; Scotopic sensitivity; Developmental delay; Syllabic segmentation; Global learning characteristics; Adaptation and Modification; Intelligence testing techniques; Allergies and nutrition; Cross marching and Multi-sensory teaching practices. I have been up more blind alleys than I can remember, but I have pieced together something of a map. Kind of like the map of the world before the discovery of the Americas. Useful as a guide, but I'm never surprised at surprising surprises! I can imagine Mrs. Einstein struggling to understand the dichotomy within her son. Surely he had flashes of brilliance that would burst here and there as she worked with him over his mundane schoolwork. I remember one evening spent laboring over a section of the grade five math curriculum. I was stumped. I didn't get it. I was completely willing to abandon the task as too inscrutable for me to comprehend let alone convey to my son. We had slogged through addition, subtraction, fractions, estimates, multiplication, but this, THIS! Polyhedrons, octahedrons, and truncated pyramids? WHAT?! "Oh," said my son with a tertiary glance, "That's easy!" And away he went to complete the section independently. With 100% accuracy. Did Mrs. Einstein ever say to herself, "My son, the genius!"? Did she spend at least equal time in exasperated disbelief that he had forgotten the order of the months of the year, again? Just wondering... Dyslexics populate the Earth in great numbers. They are all around us all the time. She is the little girl who forgets her lunch at home for the third day in a row, and her jacket, and her homework. He is the friend who gets lost driving in his own neighborhood. She is the tour director who keeps saying, "Go to the right, to the RIGHT!" while emphatically gesturing to the left, the store clerk who can't count change. He is the young man who begins his chores in the middle and somehow works his way out to the beginning and to the end. He is the guy rattling his tin cup on the bars of his prison cell. He is the man accepting the Nobel Prize. I wonder if Albert's mom felt unshakable faith in her little boy to seize his awesome place in the world. Did she have the gift of a serene inner voice that assured her that he would find his way? Or was the path to Albert Einstein's Nobel Prize paved with the stones of his mother's worry? Just wondering... Denise Little 2000 We received many responses to this article, including the following: I just read your article 'Einstein's Mother'. You really spoke to my heart! Thank you so much!! I have a little girl (7) who is gifted and dyslexic. At 3 I had her tested for hearing problems (she had none) because her speech was so poor. I had her tested for her speech problems. Yes, she needed speech therapy - but, she blew us all away with her understanding of language. She scored as well as a kid 11-13 would do!! I cried and cried thinking, "What have I been missing?" At the end of her kindergarten year she tested into the Gifted program. I wondered "How can that be?" She confuses her letters, confuses words, needs Velcro shoes, ...... Thank you for reminding me that we are not alone in our struggles - I am not the only mother going through this. : ) Val.

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