As the days grow shorter and the leaves turn from green to gold to red (or rather, here in the Bay Area, the leaves simply yellow at the edges before falling off the trees), parents of 4 year-olds everywhere start to experience anxiety attacks and insomnia as we prepare to enter our babies into the rat race. I don't know about where you live, but here in the Silicon Valley, when our children reach school age, we parents are overwhelmed by the pressure to get our kids into the right kindergarten to get into the right elementary school to get into the right high school to get into the right college to get into the right post-grad program to land the successful career. As you can see, it's pretty much a straight shot from Montessori to that corner office at the Fortune 500 company, and you don't want your child to get behind.
A perfect storm of over-achieving parents, a sucky track record for state public schools, and affluence means that parents here start grooming their kids for success at a young age through a combination of academically rigorous private schools and a plethora of extra-curricular activities. For example, my niece, who just turned 5 in August, takes ballet, jazz/hip-hop, swimming, gymnastics, ice skating, and soccer, on top of being enrolled in a private Mandarin immersion school. Parents fight over that one open slot in the "gifted youth" program like it's the last Tickle-Me-Elmo at Christmas time.
Well, most of us do that. I've horrified many friends and colleagues by telling them we plan to enroll our son in either the neighborhood public school or charter school next year. Even though many of California's public school test scores are in the crapper, our school district gets great scores and consistently boasts that 50% or more of its graduates go on to top universities. So why pay private school tuition when the public school in our district is doing the job?
Still, when I tell other parents about our intentions, they look at me like I suddenly sprouted horns. "How could you short-change your kids like that?", "Don't you love your kids enough to buy them the best education available?" Yes, those are actual questions I have been asked. By my mother, no less.
It's hard not to occasionally fall prey to self-doubt. I don't want my kids to be at a disadvantage later in life. I do want them to get the best opportunities that we can give them.
But I also really want to believe that one can achieve that without putting a 5 year-old in 6 extra-curricular activities on top of an 8-hour academic program at an ultra-competitive private school. I want to believe that with all the pressures my kids will face in adulthood, my husband and I can give them a few years during which to play, explore, and enjoy life without without feeling the pressure that they have to get really good grades because mom and dad have invested a lot of money in their brains (and they definitely feel that pressure, even if they can't articulate it). I want to believe that by staying involved and interested in their education, we as parents can build a foundation for a love of learning that will serve them well in the future.
Maybe I am naive, I'm not sure. But I want to believe that I'm not.
