Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Dipping my toes back into the blogging waters...

Hello?

HELLO???

Is this thing on????

It has been months and months since I blogged. Recently, though, I've been reconsidering getting back into the swing of things. With a little encouragement from some Twitter friends, I thought I'd take it slow by republishing some former posts. Maybe it will inspire me. At the very least, I know enough people NOW, who I didn't know THEN, it will give them a chance to read some words I wrote before I went to grad school and started teaching. This first post is one I have republished before. Someone liked it enough to nominate it for a Perfect Post, an award I don't think exists anymore. I am reminded of this post every time I read or hear about someone sending his/her first child to kindergarten. It was such an emotional experience for me; one for which I was completely not prepared. Well, you'll see HOW unprepared I was when (or IF) you read on.

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Kindergarten

She walked into the classroom, son’s hand in hers, and looked at all the desks, searching for his name. Colorful and inviting, the walls were decorated and the room ready for its new students. Today was the kindergarten tea, a time for her son, along with his classmates, to see his classroom and to meet his teacher so that he would be more comfortable for his first day of class. She didn’t anticipate any trouble. He had attended preschool on that campus for three years and she worked at the church office just across the parking lot. He was in comfortable and familiar territory.

As she showed her son all the room had to offer, a wave of emotion swept over her. Afraid she would start crying, she made excuses to leave early. Hurrying out, she took some deep breaths and the emotion subsided.

"What was that?" she asked herself. She was confused by the strength of feeling and unable to identify the specific emotion. She knew some mothers became emotional as their children started school but surely this was too strong a feeling to be that. Besides, she told herself, he had been in preschool for so long and would just be across the parking lot from her. She hadn’t thought this would bother her.

Pushing the thoughts and emotions aside, she went about her business the next couple of days. The first days of kindergarten were uneventful. Her son was fine. She was able to suppress any overwhelming feelings yet was never completely at ease. Friday came, and with it, the first school chapel. This was the only day the children had a specific dress code: shirts with collars and pants for the boys, skirts or dresses for the girls. No shorts allowed. The no shorts rule presented her with her first power struggle of elementary school. He only liked jeans or shorts and t-shirts. No collars on his shirts and no fat pants--his name for anything other than the hand-me-down Wrangler jeans he favored.

“It’s the rules. You have to wear this.” she stated patiently.

“No! I want shorts!” he demanded.

“You can’t wear shorts. It says in the student handbook. No shorts. I read it. You have to respect the rules even if you don’t agree with them,” she attempted to reason with him. Eventually, she won the battle but not without losing her patience and it was exhausting.

At the chapel hour, she headed over to the auditorium to sneak a peek at her little boy. The students filed in, class by class. She noticed one student, then another and another in shorts.

"Wait a minute. What is going on here?" she thought. Spotting Karen, the school vice principal and a good friend, she made her way over to her.

“Karen, so many boys are wearing shorts. The handbook said no shorts.”

“Dress shorts are allowed,” Karen answered matter-of-factly.

“I read through it more than once. I’m sure it said no shorts at all. I would have let him wear shorts. He wanted to wear shorts,” she began to get distressed.

“No. It says dress shorts are acceptable,” her friend reassured her.

She did not believe this and wouldn’t accept it until the manual was brought out. There in black and white were the words she had missed for some reason.

“For boys, acceptable dress includes collared shirts including knit polo shirts tucked in, pants, dress shorts, belt, sneakers...”

The dam burst of tears was released. All that fighting and struggle for nothing. Her friend tried to console her but she wasn’t in a place to be comforted. The emotion that began the day of the kindergarten tea was released now like a tidal wave and it had to run its course. She made her way back to her office sobbing. She would get the tears under control until someone would walk by and ask her what was wrong.

“I made him wear paaaaaants! I’m a horrible mom!” she wailed.

The men in her office, while sympathetic, did not quite understand this response. They humored her and gave her hugs, reassuring her that she was a wonderful mom. Although the shorts issue didn’t make sense to them, they were dads and knew not to reason with a mom in this state.

After she calmed down, she decided to try to at least alleviate her mistake. Rushing home, she picked up some suitable shorts and took them to his class. After asking permission from his teacher to help him change, she took her son into the class bathroom. As she helped him, she apologized tearfully.

“I’m so sorry, honey. I read the handbook wrong and you are able to wear nice shorts.”

He was happy to have shorts but otherwise seemed none the worse for wear. Obviously this was an experience that scarred only the mother and not the son. Over the next few days, with a little distance, she began to recognize the emotion she had been feeling: grief. That first shocking emotion that day in class was grief. She realized it now. It was the same feeling she experienced at the death of her grandfather, her brother, her grandmother. It didn’t make sense to her, though. Nobody had died. Her son had just started school.

Eventually she realized it wasn’t about being overprotective or nervous about her son’s readiness for school...

It wasn’t about being a horrible mother...

It wasn’t about shorts...

It was about what his beginning kindergarten represented: the death of his unencumbered life and his entering into a world of expectation and responsibility. He was no longer a child free of the world. Her baby was hers alone no longer. He was part of the world now.

He was ready. She was not.



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That boy, whose entry into the world of expectation and responsibility I grieved, is 19 years old now! He's faced many more milestones. As with kindergarten, I was usually not ready. Often he was. Sometimes, though, he wasn't. Growing up is hard. At 5. At 19. At 46. Lest you worry for my emotional sanity, let me reassure you by the time my second child went to kindergarten, eight years later, I practically skipped out the door--with nary a twinge of grief.

11 comments:

Eryn said...

I'm so glad you reposted this, it's wonderful. I think one day if/when your son has a little one starting kindergarten, you should print it out for the mama.

Your son, being a man, will be just like the men in your old office. ;)

When my daughter started kindergarten, she barely slowed down long enough to say goodbye, which left me plenty of time to cry in peace.

deedee said...

I hadn't read this before. You are right on with your analysis of the situation. I still feel terrible about things that my daughters barely blink at.

Unknown said...

Omigosh! Comments! It's been so long I am excited all over again to see comments on a post.

@Eryn, I'll try to remember to do that. Hopefully, that day is still a long way off. Thanks for encouraging me to get back to blogging. I know you were thinking more along the lines of guinea pig antics and not mommy meltdowns!

@Meredith, Ugh. It is still so hard sometimes! My daughter is 11 and we are headed toward a major milestone. It's killing me.

Nicole said...

I love this! On Mark's first day of kindergarten, they read the Kissing Hand and then he gave me a paper heart to hold in my palm while he was gone....it's still in my wallet, it still makes me tear up a little.

Wrath Of Mom said...

YOU'RE BACK!! YEAH!

When my eldest went to kindergarten I was the only one not crying outside the doors. I was totally comfortable w/ him leaving me for 3 hours a day. Which in retrospect seems at odds w/ our decision 10 months later to homeschool him and his younger brother.

Anonymous said...

Oh, dear. You have me crying over my food. My baby, #3, our only son, starts Kindergarten on the 6th. I’m going to miss him *so much*.

PS
Clicked over via Eryn, @Leighbra

EnnuiHerself said...

Oh, yay, welcome back! Coincidentally, I was just looking at your blog the other day to see if an update had escaped my feed burner. It's like I knew you were coming.

Mel said...

Oh look!!! :-)

She's live!
I'm so glad.
And so glad to see this post again.
It reminded me......

I shall ring the girl and talk with the bug.
I remember her meet and greet.
She was ready--I'da like to think I was ready.
Dunno that I've ever been.

Sent her out to be eaten by sharks on that sail around the world backwards--she was ready, I WAS NOT. LOL
Best thing that ever happened for her (to date......I believe there'll be many more--for her and for I.....)

*hugs*
NICE to read you again, ma'am.

Unknown said...

@Nicole, Sometimes I like to go through pics of my boy when he was little. I enjoy the sweet melancholy.

@Skinmini, nice to meet you!

@Ennui, Hello!!!!!! I am so horrible about reading blogs now. I think that is part of the reason I am reluctant to ask people to READ when I am not doing a good job of that myself.

@Mel, hello gorgeous! Forgive me for dropping out. Still not sure how much I will be out and about in the "blog'verse." It's good to "see" you here, though!

@Nan, the hard part was that I was so completely taken surprise by it. I expected to be the mom who wasn't crying, but nooooooo.

S said...

Aww. I love this.

atypical said...

Goodness, I missed you. I can really relate to feeling guilty about writing when you don't have as much time to read (or comment). Just look how long its been since I wrote anything.

-me