Our family has joined the ranks of those with children in the MPS system and it’s hard to figure out who’s having a harder time adjusting…#1 son or me. Actually at this point, the end of the third day of school, it is quite clear that I’m the only one still getting used to the new way of life.
My sons have never really gone to daycare. My husband works odd hours and Marquette University has graciously done their best to schedule my courses so that my husband and I could handle childcare at home. When we need help we have a terrific babysitter who has been able to cover us. That meant #1 son had no real experience with school before last week. We spent months talking about school in preparation and enrolled him in little “classes” at the Milwaukee County YMCA and through Milwaukee County Parks and Rec so that he could learn to listen to a teacher, take turns and have experiences without Mom or Dad nearby.
As the school year approached, we realized #1 was having a little anxiety. Everyone was talking about school, all his little friends were getting ready, every relative he has was asking if he was excited to start. His display of anxiety was of a nature that led us to take it all down a notch in the last few days before the school year started. We had to bring it up again two days in advance because his school was holding an orientation for parents and children and we wanted him to be prepared to be in his classroom for an hour without us. Daddy took him and said #1 went right into the room to see what was going on while Daddy himself went off to hear about the rules and procedures of the school.
Then (horns blowing), it was the real first day of school. We all packed up, ate breakfast, threw on some clothes (for #1, a specially-chosen pirate shirt) and headed out. We waited in the hall with all the other parents and excited, nervous children. We shook hands with the teacher at the door to the room and…tears? No. Whining? No. Last, lingering glances at Mommy? No. Instead, a stern warning from #1 that he had to hurry to put his backpack on a peg and off he went. Mommy (that would be me) was not prepared for such confidence and nearly fell into the classroom for a last, lingering glance at her firstborn. As we started heading to the office to turn in some paperwork, I got choked up and then just started to all-out cry. I grabbed #2 son, who was squirming in his father’s arms, and headed out to the playground to gather myself. I was THE ONLY ONE in the whole building who was crying. Not one kid, not one other parent.
If you’re a parent, you probably do the same thing I do: you anticipate all potential outcomes in order to be as prepared to handle them as you possibly can be. None of my anticipation had to do with #1 not being the least bit concerned about his first day. I simply was not prepared, despite all my preparations, for a happy and secure child to charge right into this whole school thing. I should have been, that’s what we’ve been working on, but I wasn’t.
So, I’m getting there. I’m sure there will be more days when I will embarrass both of us with my conviction that he should need me more. But I’ll learn, and he’ll teach me, that most of the time, parenting is about moving forward and moving on, whether I like it or not. School will be the first and most obvious lesson in that particular subject but hardly the last.
