Taking Scout to kindergarten this morning. We've gotta be in room 113 at 8:55 to meet Miss Mahoney. (Details changed to indulge the paranoid.) I'm not going to talk here about how I'm feeling. But this passage from an unpublished memoir about my mother and my sister Piper does spring to mind.
It must have been that Jeep
in which Mom famously drove Pie to the first day of kindergarten. For several
weeks ahead of time, she’d been preparing Pie for this traumatic day. She had
developed a simple plan. Here's how it would work: At the entrance to the school, Mom would kiss the palm of Pie's little hand and Pie would close it and the kiss would stay in there, Mom explained, even if she forgot to keep her hand closed during the day.The plan worked perfectly. Pie received her kiss, closed her hand, and trotted happily off to school. Mom got back in the car and headed home.
But she had to pull off the road, she was sobbing so violently.
This is beautiful. Congratulations on your big Kindergartener. I have one, too. And we have a similar ritual of a kiss on the palm so my daughter can press it to her cheek when she feels scared or sad during the day. But I forgot to get one for myself.
That’s usually how it works, David. The kids do fine; the parents are the basket cases. That the kids do fine is a tribute to the parents.
You should be back home by now, so how did it go? Did you survive the hand-off without too much angst??
I ask about you, because I’ve met Scout, and I’m fairly certain SHE handled the whole thing with her usual aplomb.
So we’re walking down Augusta street and Scout spots a fat old Mexican guy on his front porch, having his morning smoke.
“I’m going to school!” she yells to him. “My first day of kindergarten!”
“That’s great, honey!” the surprised Mexican says with a happy laugh.
At school as I kissed her goodbye, Scout turned to me and said, “I’m really excited, Dad.”
Zero to 5. I can check it off the list.
Now we enter the next phase,
David
My God, David, that girl looks like she’s packed for a bear hunt. What on earth does a 5 year old take to school these days? When Mandy was wee (which, I admit, has been awhile now), there was… lunch. That’s pretty much it. How’s it work these days?
And you’ll like the next phase (mostly). It’s frustrating as hell, especially when it comes to finding the good teachers among those who finally made me believe that tenure in public schools is immoral. (The kindergarten teacher with the cocaine/alcohol habit, for instance, who one evening at the Irish pub I favored back in the day passed out blunt scissors and mimeographs and had the patrons help her prep for school the next day.) But you’re smart and tenacious and you pay attention, so Scout will be just fine. And so will you, my friend.
When I dropped Zach off at pre-school for the first time, and he was just a little upset, I wouldn’t leave.
“It’s always the dads,” the teacher told me. “The dads are never able to leave.”
So, just to prove her wrong, I left. Then I snuck around to the back of the school and peered through the window, making sure he was doing okay.
He was surrounded by kids, laughing up a storm, which would become the dominant theme of his life, so far.
Me? I was almost arrested for being a Peeping Tom pedophile.
Steve C.
When I dropped Zach off at pre-school for the first time, and he was just a little upset, I wouldn’t leave.
“It’s always the dads,” the teacher told me. “The dads are never able to leave.”
So, just to prove her wrong, I left. Then I snuck around to the back of the school and peered through the window, making sure he was doing okay.
He was surrounded by kids, laughing up a storm, which would become the dominant theme of his life, so far.
Me? I was almost arrested for being a Peeping Tom pedophile.
Steve C.
Joan. I have no idea what was in her backpack. Or what was in the TWO GIANT TARGET BAGS we also carried to the school.
At some point, the public schools decided to make school supplies the parents’ problem.
Cristie and I have estimated that, between paying someone to pick Scout up at 2:45 and be with her in the afternoon and the sports and music lessons we’re paying for to make sure those afternoons are covered–we’re in for more than $12K, for this so-called public school.
I have a new slogan for Chicago Public Schools: “Built Today, Designed for the 20th Century!”
But it’s a good school, Joan, and the teacher didn’t look like a boozer, at all.
Simply lovely writing, David. And I love the pic of Scout. Lily even broke down and bought a backpack on wheels to tote all of her stuff to and fro. She’s in 2nd grade, mind you, which raises the bar oh, so much higher.
Ah, thanks Eileen. The picture of Li’l Lily dragging a carry-on bag to school is: ABSURD!
No matter what age you are the first day of school is always an emotional one, and often a tramatic one. In a lot of ways that first day of pre-school is the same as the first day of senior year. Which one had more crying? I’m gonna leave that up to the reading public to try and figure out.
When I was a kid, we were sent a list of school supplies to buy, and that was in the 1960s. The difference for us now, in our daughter’s NYC public school, is that the school doesn’t trust the parents to get the right supplies: it asks for a check on the first day of school so the school can buy what it needs! Maybe it’s just that not having those old personal desks with flip tops in which you kept your own supplies makes a difference.
We also get a shopping “wish list” in our weekly update letter, which always has paper towels and hand sanitizer on it. (If Scout has any skin problems, like my daughter does, tell her to stay away from the hand sanitizer!) And when Staples had some ridiculous sale–20 folders for 99 cents or something–the principal sent out an e-mail asking every family to get at least one pack of 20.
Then the parents’ association asks you to buy T-shirts. Then they make magnets out of your kid’s “art” (my daughter’s self-portrait looked like German abstract expressionism) and guilt you into buying them. Then they want you to do the penny drive. You have no idea what you’re in for, buddy.
Oh.
Boy.
I will not dwell on the timed math tests (HORRIBLE – 50 problems in 3 minutes) or the mandatory reading log (30 minutes a night or else — what a way to make a delightful interlude with kid and parent a chore).
I will dwell – however briefly – on the cool stories you will hear from Scout and the cute projects she will do (and you will, too, because homework is a shared kid-parent thing these days). It’s great having a girl in school. The boys normally grunt when I asked them how school was (“Uh, fine. Can I play Wii?”). But Julie is like my own personal Diane Sawyer (“Well, first, we were on the carpet, and Noah was in trouble because he would not be quiet. And then, I was helping Miriam because she is from another country. But Juhee is her best friend…she and Juhee are BFs at recess. I met this new girl named Macie, and we play together every day at recess. We’re not BFs yet, but she might be my BF for third grade, but I still like Gina, Alexa, and Lily best.” ).
In other words, this is going to be so much fun for you and Cristie!
Well that’s good to know, Amy, because Cristie spent the whole weekend on the verge of tears, believing we’re condemning Scout to a Dickensian soul-death.
And I just dropped her off for school for the sixth time. You know that feeling I describe above, of dropping your kid off at kindergarten for the first day?
That feeling never goes away, does it?
I’ve felt a huge new distance between me and Scout all week long. I guess I’ll get used to shouting instead of whispering, but I’ll always remember how it was.