A boy who wanted to be judged for who he was

I was born lucky by conventional standards. And by almost all other standards, for all I know. My gender (male) matched my physical sex. My sexuality (straight) met social approval. My skin color (white) matched everyone else who lived on my street and went to my schools. In England, it gave me membership in the privileged race.

Not that any of this occurred to me as a boy. In my youth, I had the gift of ignorance, the greatest joy of childhood. It was not until my parents sentenced me to boarding school, a month after my eighth birthday, that I had any questions about my identity. Although, I freely admit that considering some other people’s journeys, my identity issues were small potatoes.

So small that I wonder if they even warrant a mention. But they were substantial to me. And they were the only ones I had.

The most significant was my accent.

Please let me explain. I was born in New York City to American parents. With almost every possible roll of the dice, I would have been raised in the US as the son of my corporate father and stay-at-home mother. Instead, without my knowledge or consent, my parents moved to London when I was three months old - and they took me with them.

This relocation was not a concern for most of my single-digit youth. However, after I had attended boarding school for a year or so, I began to wonder if I was being seen for who I was - or if judgments about me were informed by my nationality.

You see, I had an American accent. I do not know what the academics know about accent formation in children. I imagine it must be a rich field of study in the US. A place that welcomed the wretched, homeless, tempest-tost, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, who arrived with a panoply of old-country accents. Then produced squalling, new, native-born American citizens.

Many of those families adopted a policy of assimilation. They anglicized exotic names. Insisted their children spoke only English. And lived in fear that established residents would shun the newest generation.

My parents were made of sterner stuff. They did not seem to care that the English knew they were foreigners and were unperturbed that their son sounded American. In my earliest youth, I did not care either.

Inevitably, I grew up. The callow youth became a sophisticated 12-year-old. My mates called me the “the Yank.” I didn’t mind. America was a place held in high regard. It was an odd time, well summed up by the implied epigram, “Yankee go home (and take me with you).” In their way, those inconsistent European xenophobes then were like US conservatives today. They loved the idea of America. While they didn't care much for Americans.

Like all children, I had good friends, nodding acquaintances, and some bitter enemies. Adding heat to this stew of relationships was the truth that boarding schools are essentially minimum-security lock-ups. Don’t get me wrong. The facilities were excellent. But you were there for the duration. We slept in dormitories, and the bed assignments were annually etched in stone. Pre-adolescent amities and ancient enmities flourished in this confinement.

During my detention, I began to question if people were reacting to me in my glorious warts-and-all individuality - or whether they were making their calculations based on my Americanness.

I suffered from doubts. Were my friends my friends because it was cool to know an American? Did my enemies despise the colonial boy simply for his unchosen birthplace? Did anyone judge me simply for who I was?

It was England, after all, the home of a stratified society, where the seventh daughter of the seventh son of an Earl had more social prestige than a factory millionaire - even if she lived in poverty in a dank, walk-up, cold-water flat.

I pondered my increasingly dire situation. I hit puberty and was ravaged by a new sense of self. It was then that I alit on the course of action I subsequently took. I worked hard at changing the way I talked. It was a success.

Within the year, I sounded as lip-locked and marble-mouthed as the scions of the most venerable families. I was word-perfect - not only in accent but also in vocabulary. My “I say” and “dear chap” were effortless and appropriate. I never used words like “toilet” or “movie”. And to say “serviette”, “couch” or “drapes” would have been unthinkable - unless I was doing an impersonation of someone who worked for wages.

By 13, as I started fresh at a new boarding school, my national origin was obscured and rendered irrelevant in social calculation.

I was helped in this self-improvement by “received pronunciation.” (RP) - the plummy accent that British children from good families adopt at their private schools no matter the geography of their background. This affected uniformity is why all upper-class Brits sound the same. And you cannot tell where in the United Kingdom or indeed where in the world they live.

It is not the erstwhile 'BBC English', a century-old accent that equally valued geographical uncertainty but placed stock in enunciation. RP can be impenetrable to the untrained ear. In contrast, the venerable broadcast variety of the language was spoken to be understood, not to signal status.

RP is the accent of the Princes William and Harry, but not their father or grandmother. King Charles and his generation are the last to speak with the royal accent, which also values clarity. These older family members are much like successful ventriloquists. It is hard to see their lips move, but you can understand what they are saying.

But let me get back to the topic. As I said before, I accept that my identity troubles were hardly existential. You might say I was wondering which fork to use in a world where people were starving. Yet nature and evolution have instilled in the young a rigorous self-regard. To a child, the world is a limitless but hazy place. Their immediate surround is all that counts.

I was living in a paradox. I wanted to be an individual who also wanted to fit in. I can offer an example of what I mean.

My peers and I had a school uniform that was rigorous in its details and inflexible in its proscriptions. I will not bore the reader except to say that the palate was black and white. And the rules mandated cufflinks, studs, and pinstripes.

However, centuries of Talmudic attention to nuance had uncovered that the then 150-year-old regulations did not address the topic of socks. Most boys dismissed this opportunity for individuality as a needless consideration. I, and my sartorially free-spirited peers, took advantage of the loophole to add spice to an otherwise plain dish.

Vibrant hosiery was how I could express my individuality while remaining ensconced in the safety of the herd.

As I moved through puberty into young adulthood, there were other times when I suffered existential doubts as to who I was, my purpose, and what it all meant. In this adolescent rite of passage, I was not alone. Others traveled the same Damascan road. And together, we kicked against the pricks.

It was only in my nationality crisis that I was alone.

Coda

As an adult, I moved back to America. I married and had children. They sound appropriately American. Although my younger daughter will occasionally elongate her ‘A’s and say things like ‘barth’ instead of ‘bath’. My wife says I now sound like a Brooklynite. I am old enough not to care.