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Who would have thought that the process of choosing a Kindergarten for my daughter would have ended up being so emotional & labor intensive? I certainly hadn't expected it. The problem was I was just going to put her into the same Catholic school in the county where my niece & nephew attended because I had gone there as a child too. But my husband & I were less than impressed with their attitude & academics. We felt like something was lacking but we stuck it out with the status quo anyway.

We knew there would be some process to finding a school because public school just wasn't an option for her. 1.) we live in the city with unaccredited school system 2.) our daughter's birthday is 13 days after the official cut-off so we would have to find a tuition-based school willing to make the exception.

We thought there would be no problem from the suburban Catholic school but of course they got a new principal. We attended the Kindergarten open house to see what we thought & again red flags were raised. They didn't already have smart boards in each class, science was lacking & there was not emphasis on foreign language until jr. high age. Plus, possibly out of nervousness, the principal misused or mispronounced 3 or 4 words. Not a strong showing for an educator. Her oldest was just in Kindergarten there & I found that to be a conflict of interest as well. The priest seemed less than engaged & even less helpful.

I had begun in September to email with my intentions, my daughter birthday, family history, etc. The principal always remained vague and never definitively told me what would ultimately be true: she was unwilling to make an exception for the fact that my daughter had been born 14 days after her due date. My husband likes to say that had she been born the last day of July or the 1st day of August as she was due, we wouldn't have had any problems. This to me is odd for a school not required to adhere to this state mandate.

But they allowed her to be tested & agreed she showed strong knowledge of the material & was pleasant & alert. Instead of saying that she didn't want to start her career as principal out by making exceptions and setting that precedence, she called me to tell me that my daughter wasn't emotionally ready (despite being in preschool for 2 years & simultaneously at Pre-K at their school and testing by her 2 teachers as well as a recommendation from her pediatrician who I think knows her better & is more qualified to speak to a child's health & well-being). I knew before they tested her that she wouldn't let my child in to her school so it was no surprise. What shocked me was that she told the administrator at the pre-K that she couldn't make an exception for a late birthday (another untruth). It is actually legal within her guidelines as she is not governed by the same laws that state run schools have and the St. Louis Archdiocese has an outlined plan for school that choose to make exceptions so they do not frown upon the practice. And it also shocked me that she would tell us it is because she was fearful that emotionally my daughter would end up having to be held back. The pediatrician was telling us that her verbal skills were off the chart! Her preschool teacher of 2 years said that she had no more immaturity than the oldest 6 year old in a K class. She also had the gaul to suggest we attend Kindergarten elsewhere but to come on back for 1st - 8th grades. Oh, okay!

Needless to say after several school tours we opted for a school at the end of our block. It only has preschool and Kindergarten so we will have to go through this process all again, but it has been eye opening and has lead me away from my lifelong belief in the St. Louis Catholic Education system. Actually we are strongly considering joining the Lutheran church my sister is currenly in the process of transferring her children to because her daughter was allowed to be bullied and treated like dirt at this same school. There is a sense of entitlement I don't dig & a lack of real community unless it revolves around CYC sports or drinking. There isn't an emphasis on community. Sure they bring in dollar bills or can goods a couple of times a year but they get dress down days or prizes for doing it so the essence of the excercise is lost & they are not being encouraged to go above & beyond academically or otherwise.

My daughter is thriving. I have been told that she listens well in class & that it is hard to believe that she is nearly a full year younger than her 4 other peers in her class (yes, 5 kids! woo hoo! and the best Kindergarten teacher - ever!). She is learning at a rapid pace & I am constantly getting updates on her great manners & her compassion toward her fellow classmates.

As this journey continues, so too will my reflections on the subject.

The day my daughter was born I wrote her a letter. I told her all about the feelings of anticipation we had been experiencing, how we couldn't wait to meet her. I had dreamt of her having long, brown hair & big, blue eyes. She had a pretty sashed dress on & was holding a balloon. Her birth was about to make us parents, creators of life, breeders, a real mom & dad to a human baby. It was beyond my comprehension until the moment we saw her for the first time & she screamed at us for the first time (this we would become very familiar with as time went by).

In the letter I thanked her for coming into my life, giving me a purpose, making me a mom, granting me the gift of experiencing love beyond anything I had ever imagined.

I didn't tell her about my hopes for her life because I felt those hopes were hers to have and she didn't need the pressure or set expectation from me, it may hinder her becoming who she was meant to be if I influenced her in that way from the beginning. Instead I went on to tell her about my hopes for me, as a mother, the expectations I held for myself as I embarked on the most significant journey I would ever take. I was about to become responsible for how someone else "turned out". O Lord! Me?! What was I thinking? So I let her know that parenting, for me, would have to be an on-the-job learning experience. There would be times when I might not know exactly what I was doing & she would have to bear with me. But through it all I vowed to  love her unconditionally, especially when I might not like something she had done, and I vowed to protect her above all else in my life.

I also promised her that there would be times she would hate me, she may even tell me so. And in those times I would have to remind myself that I was doing something right because it wasn't always going to be about making her happy. Sure, I will give the stock parental answer that I want my children's happiness above all else, but in truth, I want their safety & well-being. How can you be happy if you are injured or worse? In the letter I promised that there would be times she would forget she was my baby & she would be reckless with my child (herself) & I would be there to remind her that that was my heart & she had to be careful with it. I assured her that I wouldn't be her friend because that wasn't my job. I am her mom & although I hope to be her confidante one day as well, it was my job to keep her from being hurt emotionally & physically & to teach her not to hurt others. It will be my job to help to guide her into making good decisions, to show her just how important considering the consequences of her actions can be, to give her a sense of self-love & self-worth & to teach her that life is beautiful & fragile as most beautiful things are.

I've read the letter to her over the past 6 years & I've asked her to help me fulfill it, to keep my word to her.

Some parents get tired by the time their youngest starts to come of age. They become lacks, even apathetic. Not my mom. She was so young when my older sister was born that I think the five years it took me to catch up allowed her the time to be more sinister and creative in her parenting process. Dangit.

My sister would disagree as she subscibes to a commonly held belief that the youngest gets by with murder. She felt that she "wore my mom down" or "mellowed her out". While I will say that my mom gradually became a calmer, saner, more rational person with age and wisdom, I hardly attribute any of this to my sister's existence or effort.

What the oldest child can't or won't see is how parents start to realize they may be enabling or coddling their children too much and this may be a detriment to their adult selves. Upon making this realization, they change their methods and the younger children are submitted to strange and unusual rituals such as cleaning up after themselves, making their own decisions and generally being held accountable for their behavior. I know plently of families where the youngest is instead coddled more and accountable for less and becomes generally useless for a spouse or society for that matter, so the opposite can most certainly be true here as well.

Speaking from my perspective, I had to really learn to become a good decision maker at a fairly young age. My sister hated making decisions as a teenager and even after she had she would regret them and immediately fault someone, most usually this someone was our mother. My mom wasn't having it by the time I came around so my bad choices were all mine. Awesome.

My mom taught me to be a strong, independent woman. This can be a good and bad thing. I had to learn to change a flat tire, change my own oil and change a spark plug. These were things I later questioned if either of my parents could do. I had to learn to balance a check book, create a budget, sew a button, iron (a skill I have yet to master), find the sale price of an item, cost check for lower prices, change the inside of toilet (I still have no clue what the pieces are called.. arm? plunger? black stopper thing?). Basically I was being taught that there might not be a man around someday so I should learn to do things outside of stereotypical gender roles.

Probably the first generation on either side of our family to be groomed to become a single adults vs being prepared for married life. What if you never got married? Could you buy a house? A car? Identify a mechanical problem? My mom taught me that good credit was one of the most valuable things I would ever posess and I should take great care of it once I finally established it. I was given a checking account at age 18 which I butchered and my mom helped me out. But it taught me so much and I have grown and become so much smarter about personal finances and where I wanted to be with my own from that lesson.

I remember asking my mom why she had kept her maiden name on her house (she owned it prior to getting married to my dad) and a few of her credit cards. She explained to me that in her generation women still weren't on equal footing with men. They weren't respected in business the same, paid the same, treated the same in society, etc. If a man were to leave his wife or die, a woman could find herself in a financial disaster. No credit of her own with likely nothing in her name and possibly no resume to rely on to find a job. This scared the life out of me.

How did women do it back then? Stay so complacent? Dutiful? I would be resentful and enraged. Makes me realize the importance of Tupperware parties back in the day! A break in the grind.

My mom also taught me to always pay yourself first and keep a hidden safety net somewhere that was your "just-in-case" money. I know, it doesn't seem very trusting of men, although it's not a romantic notion it is a reasonable one. It's something I've always tried to do so I would never find myself in a position of having to be in a situation that wasn't good for me. Being chained to someone financially isn't a reality I would ever like to experience. I think in my youth I overdid it and it caused me to overwork and I paid for myself on way too many dates when it wouldn't have hurt the guy to be a gentleman. But my huband does accuse me of always being the man, so there you go.