I only have one kid. When he was younger, I was a pretty mellow mom,
but then he turned three and we started tangling with preschool and
socialization issues and general silicon valley "my kid is only three
and just made a rocket engine with legos" stuff. By four, I was tense.
At 2, if my kid fell over, I was proud that I wouldn't run over and fuss. Mellow mom. Not overprotective. Fiiine. By four, if my kid dropped something or fell over, I would anxiously zip over. Did he hurt anyone? Did he upset any peers? Did he do anything wrong? Was his energy level inappropriate? Was he bonding enough? Ugh.
Finally, I pulled my kid out of "upwardly mobile" preschools (I kid you not. I used to change my clothing to take my kid to his first preschool because I garden and I looked like a homeless person. And even with changed clothes, I looked like someone's employee. The mommies used to show up in full makeup, wearing those little slide in shoes and dress up clothes.) I put my kid into a lovely little normal preschool in Redwood City, which is right next door to ritzy Atherton, but decidedly normal. He was happy and fit in, I was happy and fit in, and I could breathe again. We stopped going to icy Menlo Park parks, where you need to wear a Junior League "accepted" sticker before the other mommies (or children) will talk with you, and began going exclusively to earthier Palo Alto or pleasant, friendly Redwood City parks. Nice.
But I'm still a bit tense. And Kindergarten just started.
This weekend I hosted a little playdate for some of the kids in the class. My child's wonderful, awesome preschool teacher joined us. She is on a swimming team and came over to jump into the pool and play with the kids on her day off. Afterwards, she came and sat at the table with the mommies, to chat and eat the awesome spread (this potluck thing is great!) I'd been worrying (just a little) about Kindergarten, and asked her about children and success.
In the list of things that I wanted in a mate (a very handy list, btw), I wanted the person to have been successful at at least one thing at some point in their life. When I asked the teacher about success, I was thinking of the new friends that we were making, who are good at swimming, fencing, etc. Like masters-level good. A friend of mine with a second grader talks now about how her son has turned out to be good at math, and how it has changed and helped to shape his life. Another friend's five year old speaks four languages. Another one is ... oh, hell, I don't know. Analyzing Proust. You know? So that was what I was talking about (sort of). I had some wierd idea that my poor just-turning-six year old perhaps should have sprouted some measurable talent or skill that set him apart from others. I hadn't really thought about this, BTW. It was just something that came to mind... up from my subconscious.
"Do you get many children in the class who have already had many successes?" I asked. The teacher smiled. "Oh yes," she said. "If you're the first kid who can ride a bike, for example, it's a wonderful feeling." Fump. There went my bottom right back down to solid reality. I was utterly charmed. The teacher spoke warmly about success for about five minutes, and it was awesome. She views every single thing that the kids learn as a success. Everything they master, even the small stuff, is a wonderful new success, and isn't that just the truth?
I know that I sound a bit radical about the silicon valley and the idea of nasty toxins leaching into the fabric of society from the poisonous, massively-competitive stuff that we do with our kids (Oh, did I not mention that before? Gosh, my slip. Sorry.), but there's a point to this. Sometimes we lose perspective. In this place where we live, it's easy to lose perspective. There are so many accomplished people. So many highly competitive people. So many scared people. And media now treats kids more like adults, like their own consumer-based segment.
I forgot. I watched all of the curriculum presentations and worried a bit that my son hasn't quite realized that he's there to LEARN. I watched him wiggling and doing boy stuff and thought that perhaps if he had "accomplished" something that he'd do better, have more confidence in life. For a moment there, I lost perspective.
Duh.
His teacher is right. My child accomplishes something new and neat every single day. He's doing a great job, a wonderful job. And so is she.
Thanks to all of those teachers out there who can drag us back to reality, to Kindergarten and Preschool, and remind us of normalcy. And especially thanks to all of them who view the children in such an amazingly positive fashion and cheer them on for every single one of their accomplishments. How cool is that?
This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog
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