Motherhood Is a Multi-Seasonal Affliction
It's one of those awkward life moments.
There you are, standing outside the kindergarten door with the other parents, waving goodbye to your kids. As the children disappear into the building with their turtle-shell backpacks, you suddenly find yourself sucked into a black hole of playground-based mommy nostalgia. Awwwww. They're so cute … They're so big … I can't believe it's already spring … All those baby years … are they really over? SNIFF.
Your eyes are watery too. Damn tree pollen. But you play along because, really, do these sweet, sniffling gals need to know you're not on their sentimental wavelength? You aren't sad. You aren't emotionally overwhelmed. Secretly, in fact, you are overjoyed. Those baby years are over? … YIPPEEEEE!
You don't cheer out loud, of course. Not until you get back to the car and roll up the windows, at which point you can howl like a drunken sailor, fresh off the boat for Fleet Week. But why shouldn't dropping off your kids with another responsible adult—anywhere, really—be a moment to celebrate? Let's review some basic facts. Who managed to keep them alive during the toddler years, when they were hoisting themselves onto the hot stove to "help" you cook? You did. Who paid daycare professionals all that money to read them tactile books? You did. Who lost all that sleep when they had rotavirus and had to be rushed to the bathroom every twenty minutes with the runs? Your spouse did that. C'mon. Gross.
But no matter how many kids you have, how many hours you work, or how many mornings you feigned sleep until your husband got up to make them breakfast, the point is the same. Dry those fake pollen tears, Mom. You earned this shit!
Besides, you won't be cheering in your car for long. Allergies come and go with barometric pressure, but parenting is a year-round condition. As your kids go through the school year, you confront new challenges every day. You worry they won't make the right friends, get a spot on the right soccer team, or find their way into the right bathroom, whatever that means in this day and age. The good thing about school is that it has teachers. The whole reason these people are able to fulfill their lifelong dream of teaching kids how to find the "right" bathroom is that you're dumping kids off—100 percent alive, by the way—at the tender age of five. Even so, school isn't quite the mommy vacation it's cracked up to be. The kid still expects you to pitch in with folders. Teachers offer an obscene number of opportunities for parental involvement. And if school makes kids smarter, it also makes them hip to your tricks. By the time they hit second grade, you can no longer tell them that homemade cupcakes are a pretend food. Thanks, Cupcake Mom.
As the kids grow and the seasons change—whether it's soccer season, camping season, apple picking season, or cold and flu season—you still need guidance on important issues. Most of all, you need helpful shortcuts and self-serving rationales. There's a time and a place for sentimental parenting. But school drop-off is not that time and place, and neither is this book.