To those standing on the outside looking in, Calvin has the superior home life. Unlike Meg, both his parents are alive and well, offering support for both his academic and sports endeavors. Calvin is the model student: bright and athletic, with two loving parents. Meg is the troublemaker: the product of a broken home, a child whose parents put their scientific pursuits above the well-being of their own children. However, things are not always what they seem.
Calvin's parents are demanding and dismissive of what he wants. In their mind, greatness is to be expected, and anything less is a failure on their son's part. On the other hand, Meg's mother and father (when we later make her father's acquaintance) encourage their children to ponder the impossible and pursue goals that other people find fanciful. Meg's parents want their children to be the best versions of themselves, whatever that may...
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look like. Calvin's parents have his whole life mapped out and won't be derailed by something as menial as their son's desires.
While Calvin may receive praise at school, it rings hollow when such accolades are not bestowed upon him at home. And while Meg may be misunderstood by the school administration, who urge her to simply "move on" from her loss, at home her mother encourages her to believe in the impossible as her father had.
In Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Calvin O'Keefe is a boy a couple of school years above Meg Murry, our main character. Meg and Calvin essentially have opposite home and school lives.
Meg is very well loved by her family. Meg's mother is endlessly supportive of her children, even while dealing with the struggle of her husband's disappearance. On the other hand, Meg does not do well in school, despite her intelligence. She does not get along with teachers or other students and doesn't do well with traditional learning methods, because she "learned far too many short cuts" from her brilliant father. In the first chapter, we learn that a teacher said the following to Meg:
Really, Meg, I don't understand how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are supposed to be can be such a poor student. If you don't manage to do a little better you'll have to stay back next year.
Calvin does very well in school. He's skipped grades because he's so smart, he's on the basketball team, and he's popular with the other kids. But, from the very first time we meet Calvin in the story, we see that he doesn't have a good home life. He tells Meg and Charles Wallace outright that he came to the woods to "get away from my family." After meeting Meg's kind and beautiful mother and seeing their lovely house, he talks about his own family, saying:
I love them all, and they don't give a hoot about me. Maybe that's why I call when I'm not going to be home. Because I care. Nobody else does. You don't know how lucky you are to be loved.