Early Education

As you can tell by the name of my blog, I'm a mother. My kids are young - under 5. As my oldest daughter approaches the traditional school age, I've found that the education system has changed a bit since I was young, and quite frankly, I think the changes suck.

For starters, my daughter was born in the winter. The rule for starting school is that the kid must be 5 by August 31st to go into kindergarten that year. So that means my daughter will be one of the oldest kids in the class.

Fortunately (sarcasm), they now "suggest" - aka bully and pressure -- you put your kids into preschool. Not just 1 year of part-time preschool, but 2 years of intense 3-day-a-week preschool. Of course, that preschool is run by the public school system, but it's not free, it's about $2,000 a year and it has strange hours and no busses. Makes sense.

I'm also a part of our local MOMS club. I knew that a lot of the stay-at-home moms in my area were on the older side, but it seems the MOMS club is a mecca for late 30's, early 40's first-time stay-at-home moms. That's fine, except that these ladies and I parent differently. They want to put their kids through 5 years of preschool leading up to kindergarten - which they start when they are 6 because somehow that gives them an "advantage" - and then they move on from there. Hovering. Bullying and pressuring the teachers. Tutoring. Programs. Pre-SAT prep courses, etc. etc. The result is a bunch of kids that are graduating high school at 19 and completely inept at doing anything on their own.

I don't want that for my kids.


I don't want to put them through 2 years of the same preschool program, while basically paying for glorified daycare on a schedule that downright stinks. Not interested. I would rather they do 1 year of preschool and then jump into the thick of things. By the time high school is over they are going to be sick of school anyway - no need to speed up the burnout by putting them through the paces a year more than is necessary.

So the other moms can go ahead and judge me now - call me cheap, say I don't care about my kids - but when our kids are in high school and yours are smoking pot and pregnant and mine are still enjoying learning new things, we'll see who has the last laugh.