Under Pressure

The documentary Race to Nowhere has been making the rounds in our communities, and all around me, parents are tsk-tsking the achievement-obsessed pressures put upon our kids today. In the Silicon Valley, where everyone is hustling to create the Next Big Thing that will Change Life As We Know It, the pressure is even greater as parents try to instill that drive to excel in their children at a very early age.

But it’s not just the kids who live in this pressure cooker. We parents are getting cooked right along with them. When my son started kindergarten, I was immediately approached by the PTA recruitment team, mostly comprised of the wives of the VP’s, CEO’s, and CIO’s that run companies like the one at which I work. They needed room mothers, fund raising task force members, traffic council volunteers (“traffic council” is a fancy word for being a crossing guard in the school parking lot). They’re very lucky that they don’t need to earn a living with jobs that dictate how to spend 10 hours of the day, but I do and their husbands work me to death. I don’t have the energy to work for them, too.

We can’t just sign up our son for Little League, we have to coach, too (they must be strapped for coaches if they’re asking us). And I can’t bring cupcakes for him to share with his classmates on his birthday due to a strict no-sugar policy. Instead, I am supposed to put together a book about his life that I need to present to the class. Really, he’s the one in kindergarten, but I have to do a project?

We get weekly reminders – er, I mean newsletters – to pack healthy lunches, buy organic, support local businesses, recycle, conserve water, compost, participate in school events, read to our children at least 15 minutes every day, sign up for [insert sport here], and (my favorite) slow down and enjoy quality time with our families.

It’s not that I have any issue doing those things, but we can’t just do them. We must perform them at the highest level at all times. And for some reason, even though I believe that I would try to do most of those things on my own anyway, it becomes so stressful when there are external levers driving those behaviors.

Don’t get me wrong. I love where I live. I love the diversity. I love the culture of innovation. I love having my family close. I love having Stanford in my backyard. And I love the weather. I just wish this area came with a safety valve.

Being a Full-Time Mom

I need to state for the record that I am a full-time mom. I also work full-time. I am still a mom, even when I am at work. I am still a mom when I am at the gym. I am a mom at 3am when V is screaming because she got a bloody nose. I am a mom when I take PTO because E has a fever and cannot go to school.

I am not a stay-at-home mom (quite frankly, I do not have the patience and fortitude that SAHM's have, and bless their hearts, they are stronger women than I am), but that does NOT mean that I am not a full-time mom.

Please note for future reference that just because a mother needs or wants to contribute to the household income that it does not diminish the full-timeyness of her motherly duties.

Kindergarten: The Throwback Year

We are in the middle of Kindergarten registration season, and even though my husband and I have made the decision to put E into public school, it's still causing a lot of stress.

You may think the stress comes from knowing that the charter school we registered for is expecting to receive over 500 applicants to fill only 40 spots.

Or you might think it's due to knowing that our public school's enrollment is at near capacity and some residents may get re-districted to a sister district.

But mostly what is stressing me out is the very establishment of Kindergarten itself, which seemingly still operates on the assumption that there is always one stay-at-home parent who has no other scheduled priorities beyond his or her child's school schedule.

When our kids enter Kindergarten, we will be tethered to 4-hour school days, 8:30am - 12:30pm (or even worse, 11:00am - 3:00pm - I might as well throw my whole day away). What do we do with E the rest of the day? There's no after-school care program through the school district, so now we have to find some alternative child care in addition to making a decision about school itself (I refuse to think about what to do if he gets put in the 11:00am class, I have no idea how to work my job around those 3 hours in the morning until he would go to school).

I really don't understand why this is. E's pre-school allows me to drop him off at 8:30am and pick him up at 6:00pm. He has structured lessons in pre-school: math, reading and writing, art, and PE. He is used to this schedule, it's not too much for him. He doesn't feel abandoned by his parents. When he goes into first grade, his schedule will be 8:15am - 3:30pm. So why is there this one school year where parents are forced to scramble to figure out what to do with their kids for half the day?

Now we have to consider hiring a nanny to shuttle him to and from school and watch him for the time he's not in class. The cost of a nanny who has driving credentials: almost the cost of a private school that does offer full-day kindergarten. I'm starting to see why people thought we were crazy to go the public school route. But really, it shouldn't have to be crazy to support our public education system.

I'm sure there's some method to this madness that I can't see. Maybe someone can explain it to me. Or better yet, maybe someone can tell me how to solve the dilemma we'll be in come September.