Sweet Teen & Homecoming

Homecoming was this past weekend.
This evening she was reminding me that in the "old days", i.e., grade school, when she earned C's and D's, I didn't get angry with her, but I'd say things like, "Your value as a human being has nothing to do with your grades.  Are those the grades you want?"
Now as a junior in high school, she has mostly A+'s, an A or two, and is very upset by her B in math.  She's not sure I'm happy enough with all her A's.  I figure they're her grades.  I'm happy for her, but they're her grades, not mine.  And apparently I'm not happy enough. She also remarked that in her psych class they've been discussing that most of the parents of the other kids put a lot more pressure on them to get high grades and get a lot more upset if they get bad grades.
I can't help thinking back to those couple of years I worked on her adoption.  What I was thinking then was that I wanted to raise a child who would be happy, a good human being, and capable of maintaining long-term intimate relationships.  That's pretty much what I still want for her--and that's pretty much who she is.  In seven days, she'll have been legally and officially my daughter for 14 years.  We've faced a lot of challenges.  I'm very happy that she is who she is.  I love that she's smart, introspective, reflective, and seldom acts without thinking.  In view of the fact that we are so alike in so many ways and so different in so many other ways, she wonders what is genetic and what is the result of nurturing.  It might be interesting to know, but I'm just glad she's who she is.