We did everything right, didn't we? The kindergarten with the brightest walls, where you cried that first September morning and we pried your fingers from our legs, told you it was for your own good.

The tutors when your grades slipped in seventh, the summer school to catch you up, the second chance at sophomore year, the third. But still you graduated— we made sure of that.

We drove you to practice, to lessons, checked your homework, met with teachers, filled out forms, signed permission slips, set alarms, enforced bedtimes, did everything the books advised.

But now we see you at twenty-three, shoulders curved beneath fluorescent lights, that spark—remember how you used to question everything?—extinguished, replaced by this careful exhaustion.

You move through days like someone who's forgotten they once dreamed of building wings, of touching stars, of asking why the sky is blue until the answer sang inside you.

Oh children, how we failed you.

We thought the rows of desks were ladders, thought the bells that sliced your days were teaching you the rhythm of success. We thought obedience was preparation.

How were we supposed to know that sitting still for seven hours, your questions timed to someone else's plan, would teach your minds to cage themselves?

How were we supposed to know that fractured lessons—math at nine, history at ten, science at eleven, no thread between them, no story of how you fit within the world— would scatter your attention like seeds on concrete?

How were we supposed to know that standardized meant diminished, that one-size-fits-all meant no-size-fits-anyone?

That the teacher reading from the script, eyes dead as yours grew duller, was teaching you that learning is something done to you, not with you, not from within the fire of your own wondering?

Oh children, we fed you to a machine that promised to polish you, not knowing it would sand away your edges, your questions, your wild and precious difference.

We delivered you each morning to those fluorescent rooms, those predetermined paths, those tests that measured nothing of your laughter, your kindness, your way of seeing sideways at the world.

How were we supposed to know that controlling when you moved, when you spoke, when you could even walk to get a drink of water, would teach you not to trust the wisdom of your own body, your own mind, your own spirit?

How were we supposed to know?

Everyone said this was the way. Everyone's children sat in rows. Everyone's children learned to wait for someone else to tell them what to think, when to think it, how long to think before the bell dissolved all thought to schedule.

We thought we were giving you the world. Instead we gave you someone else's version of it, predigested, portion-controlled, divorced from any hunger you might feel to know, to grow, to become.

Oh children, how we failed you. Your genius wasn't lost— we let them train it out of you, one worksheet at a time.

How were we supposed to know?