Big, Small Decisions

I first overheard the rumor at a birthday party.  “People,” I heard one mother say, “will start lining up around 5 am.”

“But why so early?” another mother replied, looking alarmed. 

“There are only twelve slots,” the first explained, her forehead creased with concern.  “It’s first come, first served.” 

I felt the seductive pull to freak out about this, so I moved to the other side of the room.  Fear is contagious, and I have a weak immune system.  

Because I didn't want to believe the hype, the next morning I walked into the director’s office.  The two women who run Sophie’s nursery school always have their door open.  They greet every child by name.  On this particular day, the sound of Billy Holiday was wafting out of their office. 

“So, are the rumors true?” I asked, without offering up a context. 

Her face broke out into a half-smile as she rolled her eyes.  “I’m telling everyone to get here around 6:15.  We’re not opening the doors before 7:15.  And then, it’s in the order that you came.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.  People are respectful.”

“But then why wouldn’t I get here at five, or earlier, if it’s in the order in which we arrive.”

“You can,” she shrugged. 

Ugh.  Parent pitted against parent in a race to be first.  These are the parents I have come to know over the last couple of months.  Parents of Sophia’s friends--lovely people.  

Parents, like me, who work outside the home and need full-time kindergarten. 

You see, our town has half-day kindergarten.  I am told by that the teachers pack a lot of learning into those two and a half hours.  But almost as soon as you drop your children off (or they walk to school, there are no busses), it’s time to turn around and pick them back up again, rendering it virtually impossible to work.  Even from home.

The parents I know who work outside-the-home full time are fairly irate about the half-day situation.  Many have had children in day care since they were babies.  A half-day program feels like a step backwards to them.  They are resentful that they have to pay double to get the hours they need (taxes plus tuition) after having paid their dues for the past four years.  Particularly when in the Northern part of our state full-time kindergarten is the norm. 

I am fortunate.  I have options.  Not everybody does. 

Thing is, I really want to send Sophie to her public school.  There are a million reasons she should go—the quality of the education…to be with her friends from our block… to ensure she has a spot in our neighborhood school…she’s dying to… our taxes pay for it…but all of this is trumped by the fact that you blink, and the school day is over. 

I know that Sophia’s future does not rest on the quality of her kindergarten experience.  She will adapt to and thrive wherever she goes.  The anxiety that surrounds this decision, like all things, will become something that I smile at one day—the time I pitched a tent in front of Sophie’s nursery school to get her in a coveted slot. 

And yet, if I increase my hours next year because I enjoy my work, I have the opportunity to do some good in this world, and it will help pay the bills, I want to know that this decision has the lowest level of impact on Sophia.

I am not sure what that means, really.  Maximizing her comfort by minimizing change, perhaps.  Or maybe it’s about my own comfort.  Staying with what’s familiar, in a place where its homey and safe. Where I can leave Sophia for seven hours at a time, and when I come to pick her up, she begs me to stay longer.

So, ridiculous as it is, come November 13th, you can find me, parked in my Subaru, hands pressed against the vents for warmth, as the sun creeps into the sky.  

Red Shirts for All

A friend recently asked me what was my take on holding children back a year from entering Kindergarten…. (This one’s for you, Stephan.)

Perhaps I should have been held back. Born in August, I was always the smallest, one of the most socially awkward students in my class. I cried every single morning from Kindergarten until third grade, when, I was either finally mature enough to be in school or had a teacher who was so engaging, I forgot to cry. (Thank you, Mr. O’Brien)

I remember, in Kindergarten, my teacher leaning over with me, pleading, “Melissa, if you keep crying, all the other children are going to drown in your tears.”

Another kindergartener had a gentler approach. She put her arm around my shoulders and said, sympathetically, “Don’t cry, honey.”

And in second grade I had a teacher so mean, so incensed by my tears she once hissed at me before we watched a movie, “you better cry through this entire movie. If you don’t, I’ll give you something to cry about.” And boy did I cry. I sobbed. I wailed. It was remarkable that the other children could hear the movie over the din of my blubbering. But when the movie was over she came over to me and said. “I didn’t hear you cry.”

“But I did cry!” I insisted, tears rolling down my face.

“No. You didn’t. You enjoyed the movie like every other rotten child in this room, and now you are going to be punished.” She dug her nails into my scalp, and led me, cackling, over to the chair in the corner, underneath the pencil sharpener. (F*** you, Mrs. Sable)

My friend Emily came over with a fistful of dull pencils, to keep me company and offer her sympathy.

But, because I was academically on par with my peers and an early reader, my parents believed that holding me back would only serve to hold me back, I started kindergarten when I was freshly five.

I’ll say this. At least I got out younger too. I think I’ve finally recovered.

But, it was uncommon to leave children back then. The times, they have a-changed. Now, it’s not only done without hesitation, it’s rampant. So much so there’s a name for it: red-shirting. (Redshirting has its etymological origins in the college practice of delaying an athlete’s participation in sports in order to extend his/her period of eligibility. Traditionally, these students wear a red jersey in scrimmages with the other, actively playing students.) Redshirting became more popular as demands increased for a higher level of school readiness…but in towns like mine, parents will also do it to give their child an edge in sports. So they can be bigger, stronger and more skilled then their no-so-same-aged peers.

To redshirt or not to redshirt? I have pondered this question from the other end of the spectrum—should I push Sophia into school early? Sophia, like anyone born after October 1 in my corner of the world, misses the cut-off date, which means, by the time she’s eligble for Kindergarten she’ll be almost six.

So, if I follow convention, she will start public school having attended my mother’s preschool for four years. How’s that for school readiness?

On the one hand, given the local tendency to hold kids back, she might just find herself on par with her peers—social-emotionally, intellectually, physically, and in actual years. But, in the meanwhile, I wonder if she get bored. Feel unchallenged. Start to act out.

I weigh the options. She’s not a shy child. Oh, she’ll bury her face in my leg for all of 60 seconds before getting thisclose to another child and demanding that he play “sick kitty” with her in our pediatrician’s waiting room: “Okay. Let’s pretend kitty has a banana stuck in her ear. No, a banana stuck in both her ears. No, no no. Wait. A banana stuck in both ears and her heart. And you’re the doctor.” She’s kind of a social vigilante. Forcing strange children to play with her.

Academically, she’s good.

As for maturity. She seems almost too independent for me, pushing me away on the escalator, “I can do this MYSELF mommy.” Ordering me from the back seat to drive, “Mom, the light is green. Just go.” Always walking away without a backwards glance.

I think if I sent her to kindergarten tomorrow, she’d tread water. She’d do what she always does. Try to usurp the teacher.

But on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind keeping her around for one more year. Enjoying this fleeting thing called childhood. Having the luxury of my mother popping into the storage room where I work to say, “Melissa…you’ve got to see this…she pretending she’s a miner… she’s practicing her part for the play…she’s in the kitchen with Marie…she just wrote her name….” Having one more year to play. One more year of freedom. One more year before the demands set in: To sit. To attend. To listen.

And then there’s the research, which says there’s no long term harm, and often short term good in holding kids back. Which makes me wonder: maybe we’re sending our kids to school too soon in general. What’s wrong with another year of childhood, before being swallowed up by the great machine that is school? Maybe everyone could stand to benefit from one more year in the school of life.