WELCOME TO THE

KINDERGARCHY
(with apologies to Joseph Epstein…
….and thanks as well, because he got me thinking about it*)

By Helen Black
Mother’s Day Out, Vol.1, No.2 September 6, 2009
Hi! I’m your new room parent. Come on in and grab a seat. I know they’re small,
but we won’t be long. To prevent imprints on your posterior I suggest the
occasional shift from one buttock to another. Please stow all hand-held devices and
shut off all woofers and tweeters, unless you’re a brain surgeon which I know none
of you is because I got the cheat sheet from the principal. And you! Penrod! Yes,
you. Take off that ball cap, and don’t let me see you or any other male wearing a hat
inside the school again. I’ve got a wad of pink slips in my pocket and I’m not afraid
to use’em. Now give me your eyes. Give me your eyes…….Good job! We can
begin.

Tomorrow’s the big day! The day your little darlings will be fed into that huge maw
known as the educational system. This is a big hairy deal—for you. Not for your
offspring; little Atticus or Portia will probably take to it like a duck to water. But for
you—well, it could be a different matter. This will be the first time—the first
official time—you are forced to interact with the wider world solely in your role as a
parent. In other words, you’re going public! So, to prevent both needless anxiety
and needless confidence, we’re going to have a few minutes of orientation. Just a
few, because it’s becoming obvious that some of you still have the attention span of
a gnat. Penrod! No texting. Put that iPhone away. Away away. Thank you.

Your teacher, herself, is at Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt’s Interfaith Retreat Center
concluding her week of fasting, prayer and meditation to gird herself for the
onslaught of another class of five-year-old dynamos collectively possessing a
combination of academic and social skills in proportions increasingly inverse to
those historically expected by kindergarten teachers, and the consequent increasingly
difficult task of helping them to develop an attention span greater than that of a
gnat—Penrod! You don’t need to know the temperature in Cabo San Lucas right
now and if you don’t put that toy away it’s going to take a long, long nap in the
principal’s office….thank you.

So anyway, that is why your teacher is there, finishing her week of mediation, I
mean meditation, training, and I am here, at her behest. We go way back, I’ve had a
kid in her class every other year for an embarrassingly long time, like about a
decade, but she also intimated that I might get the parking space at the school
auction even if I wasn’t actually the highest bidder, so this is the real reason why
you are getting my—my personal—your’s truly’s—customized list of time-tested
Success Tips for Parents. Not the sameold, sameold “read the dress code, no
blankies or gameboys in the backpack, and minimize the sugar in the lunchbox”
chat. No, no, no. You’re going to get five tips you won’t get anywhere else, which,
if followed, just might establish the groundwork for a future functional, well-
adjusted member of adult society. For those of you who are at this moment asking
yourselves “what’s in it for me?” just think about who you want to have pushing you
around in that wheelchair. All right then.

So here we go.

1. This is not your kindergarten classroom. It’s your child’s.

See that door over there? Imagine a dotted line painted across the threshold.
Outside there, that’s the hall. That’s your space. Inside here, this is your child’s
space. It’s her domain. THIS IS THE KINDERGARCHY. Respect it. Respect her.
Not one little rainbow-hue pedicured, Birkenstock-clad toe over that line. Don’t talk
for her either. And don’t carry her backpack.

2. Get your child to bed early every night and turn off the television in your
home. You can no longer keep little Tristan up because you haven’t had a chance to
see him all day. Ain’t gonna work. Last time I checked, the American Academy of
Pediatrics recommended ten hours of sleep for children aged 5-10. Do the math!
And as for screens, Little Scylla and Charybdis will need their down time. Their
little neurons will be overloaded, so don’t stunt their brain development! If they are
frazzled and acting out, Just Say No to the plug-in drugs. Instead, take them on your
lap and give them a few minutes of your complete and undivided attention. You’ll
be amazed at what that will do. And after a few minutes, they will—trust me—
spontaneously clamber off your lap and play happily and quietly on their own,
hopefully outside, in the fresh air, which will repair their nervous systems instead of
degrading them. (As a corollary, don’t over-organize them with extra-curricular
activities at this tender age…or even in first or second grade.)

3. Don’t put the teacher on speed-dial.

She’s not paid enough for that! Don’t worry—it’s only kindergarten. If there’s a
problem, she’ll contact you. And, best if you learn now: You are not special. Your
child is not special. Every child in the class is different and unique and equally
deserving of the teacher’s precious attention. Please deposit all sense of privilege or
entitlement in the circular file by the door on your way out tonight.

4. Three is the magic number.

If little Dulcinea comes home mumbling complaints about someone, don’t brush her
off but also don’t give her the benefit of a huge reaction. (“Roland pushed you in
line? Oh, that wasn’t nice. Did you tell him to stop? Oh, good!”) If she mentions it
twice, take notice, and if she brings it up three times, share it with the teacher, using
the teacher’s desired mode of communication, whether it be a telephone message
during the school day, an email at night, or a verbal conversation after school, etc.
Do not address the issue yourself with little Roland or his mother. Your teacher is a
highly-trained professional. The chain of command you need to remember is: your
teacher; your teacher; and your teacher. And then the principal.
(Dialogue Tip: It may be helpful to use this phrase with little Thorsten: “And what
happened right before…” as in: “And what happened right before Dante poured his
carton of milk over your head?” The answer may be illuminating.)

5. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Look at the parents on your right. Look at the parents on your left. Yes, just like
they told you during orientation at Georgetown Law: by graduation only one (pair)
of you will still be here. For manifold reasons, of varying legitimacy and
truthfulness, a significant number of your fresh-faced eager fellow parents will
depart these halls over the years for presumably greener pastures, or at least different
pastures, dragging the unfortunate victims or lucky beneficiaries (as the case may
be) of their own contingencies, exigencies, and other -igencies behind them. Let me
quickly insert here that this should be, first and foremost, an occasion for humility.
We’re all in the same boat, even if it doesn’t look like it in the school parking lot.
We’re all under myriad pressures—many of them properly invisible to outsiders--
and trying to do the best we can. Therefore: be kind, friendly, and positive to
everyone and every child. Operate on the assumption that you will be closeted with
these folks for the next nine years, so learn to get along. “Play well with friends.”
Don’t get involved in catfights, and be Switzerland where others’ are concerned.
Don’t regress to the junior high bathroom or the dorm smoker—gossip and sniping
will not serve you well in the long haul. Remember, you’re the grown-ups now!
This isn’t your schtick. It’s your kid’s.

So there we are. If your child has been in daycare all along, you still need to pay
attention here. Just because you chose Curtain # 2 when Petunia was an infant
doesn’t mean that this transition will be no more than a hiccup in your daily routine.
Don’t kid yourself—and I know you’re not, by the way you’re looking at me! You
know: childcare is a lap substitute, but school is the profession of small, individual,
juvenile-type human beings who, with the development of concrete operational
thinking—the ability to read and grasp what they read, to grapple with abstracts—
are themselves, in their turn, giving birth each to his or her own separate universe of
individual personality, affinity, and inclination, in which you may take part—IF
you’re lucky, IF you pay attention, IF you are there at those exact right moments—
only by invitation.
And here’s your take-away: This is just fine. They’ll be just fine, and so will you.
The true Kindergarchy is not a government of the children, or by the children, but a
government for the children, fostered by mature, attentive and respectful adults who
follow and gently reinforce the teacher’s lead. This is what gives little Veronica and
little Gimlet enough oxygen so their own indiosyncratic climate of the imagination
can bloom, the only kind of climate in which true happiness in life can be found,
and, happily enough for the forward march of civilization, also the only climate in
which artistic and scientific invention can occur—the only place where things like
the Bauhaus and the microchip, mass spectrometry and the pentatonic scale, the
polio vaccine and the Velvet Revolution—the only place such things as these could
ever have been envisioned and brought to life. It’s totally, totally cool. Only you
can truly give it to your child. And it has a fabulous cascade effect. Welcome to the
Kindergarchy!

And that’s all I have to say. Thanks for coming! You can hook those electronics
back up again, and, before you go, take a look under your chair. Whoever has the
red sticker underneath gets to take home Penrod’s iPhone.

*“The Kindergarchy: Every Child a Dauphin,” Weekly Standard 6/9/08, Vol. 13, Issue 37

* * *
NEXT UP in the October issue: “Thanks Mom! Or, Why I’m Not a Thalidomide Baby”

* * *

You are reading MOTHER'S DAY OUT, an interactive newsletter published at erratic and
serendipitous intervals by Helen Black. The opinions expressed herein are to be blamed solely on
the publisher. Disclaimer: men can read it too. Here at MOTHER'S DAY OUT we do not practice
textual discrimination.

* * *
SEVEN BLACKBIRDS Gee I’m supposed to be marketing my own book too so here it is! A
Highly Entertaining and Inspirational Work of Literary Fiction about a young mother
rebuilding her life after an abusive marriage. Check it out on my list of Scribd docs.
It’s the one that costs money, but for heaven’s sake, throw me a bone here! I got all
those kids to put through collidge. Also available on Amazon (it’s been McKindled,
for those of you with the latest e-toys), and (on papyrus) at indie bookstores in
Portland and San Francisco, rainy and foggy places where people read books.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15072658/Seven-Blackbirds
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18572454/Moms-Guide-to-a-Chick-Lit-Novel