When I picked my 3-year-old from preschool Friday, she greeted me with a happy shout of “It’s the weekend!” And proceeded to pull me over to the school calendar on the wall, point to the Saturday, and repeat: “It’s the weekend.” She was delighted.
I’m a little discouraged that my 3 year old already looks forward to the weekend. God knows I do too – but she’s only started school three weeks ago. Is that how long it takes to resent the day-to-day grind of a Monday-to-Friday schedule? Three weeks? And to think she has just 15 or 20 years of school to go, before she can hopefully find a full-time job. Another 60 some years of looking forward to Friday night.
My first born has taken kindergarten in stride, thrilled with it all, as happy on Monday morning as she is on Friday morning. But Anna, experiencing her first taste of all-day, every day preschool – nine hours worth, while I’m at work – is not as enthusiastic. She has a good day, is full of stories, has attached herself to a best (and second-best) friend. Her teachers say she is happy and busy, fond of both circle time and her two-hour nap. But she resists school every morning. Sometimes crying, other times just whining, with a lot of stalling tactics and general attitude of “I don’t want to go to school. I want to stay home.”
It’s not about me – she’s not clingy or facing separation anxiety. She’d just rather not, thank you very much. She was home with me on maternity leave for a year, then two years with a shared nanny. It’s only taken three weeks for her to figure out that the daily grind of getting out the door at 7:30 and getting home for dinner isn’t what she had in mind for her leisure time.
Guilt? Definitely. I know there are kids who start daycare shortly after birth and don’t stop the Monday-to-Friday grind until high school graduation. And know many kids who love their school, racing ahead of Mom to get in the door every morning. Who love their teachers, arts and crafts, hot lunches and storytime. But I admit a home-based childhood seems like a lovely life. I can’t give it to her – I’m a single mother by choice and I work in an office every day, until the end of time – but I still wish my kids didn’t face another 15 or 20 years of institutional care from 8 to 5.
It’s not that I don’t like school, and don’t appreciate structure and social stimulation, I just wish they had more chance for downtime, more years for doing nothing. I’ve heard of summer vacation, but most of the kids I know are just in another form of childcare – a camp or a school – except for a week here or there of family vacation.
I know the good ol days weren’t that good for a lot of people, including children. But the modern rat race seems to start awfully early for children whose parents work full-time, Monday to Friday, so that the first day of school starts long before kindergarten.
I’m doing what I can to compensate my kids with downtime, now that we’re all hard at work from 8 to 5. Our evenings are unstructured play, and they end with an early bedtime. Extra-curriculars will have to wait until everyone is a little less exhausted and can make it to 7 pm without a meltdown.
Weekends – those longed-for two days – are lovely interludes of family baking and every-toy-out, Saturday morning cartoons and long evenings at the playground. Also, a lot of laundry, and housekeeping, and running all the errands undone during our week. But it’s still the weekend, when choices abound and we all unwind from schedules and expectations. I love it, too. I wonder where she gets it.