After being at home for three years with a combination of her beloved "Nona" and a series of amazing sitters, our daughter is enrolled for her first preschool experience. Shopping for said school was very similar to the time the husband and I went couch shopping for our current home. A sales rep approached us on the floor of a local furniture Mecca and asked if we were looking for anything in particular:
Me: "Yes, I'm looking for a sofa with an English rolled arm."
Sales rep: ".... Oh, so we like nice things."
You should have seen the husband's face just fall...
So I went through the gamut of emotions with regard to choosing this preschool. At first, I was certain that most of those early education statistics meant to study disadvantaged populations are completely over-inflated by status-obsessed upper middle class parents who think that these arbitrary decisions make or break their child's chances of getting into Harvard, (and to a large extent, I still do believe that). I thought that surely the well-regarded, local public pre-K was going to be more than enough for our progeny, but after the husband toured one local academy, I decided that I should proceed with some due diligence and we should tour a few more school programs. Well, I shall describe them and you can guess which one I chose.
Option A: Our city's public, pre-K program (subsidized, though still not at all free. Don't get me started on a culture that churns out studies on the importance of early childhood education and yet doesn't fund it and barely provides enough funding for the public school system already in place that starts in kindergarten.) Its local claim to fame is a highly-regarded principal often compared to Mr. Rogers in temperament
Option B: The Y Academy, with the rave reviews of the bougie residents of the town next door, and with a wait-list to match
Option C: A Montessori program several blocks away, situated in a beautiful sun-lit Victorian mansion, and with a curriculum focused on the environment and multi-culturalism
If you chose Option C, you are correct. If you guessed that Option C is also the most expensive, you would also be correct.
What can I say? Much to the husband's chagrin, I was enchanted. I have fond memories of my own pre-K experience at Cabbage Hill Country Day School. It was an old farmhouse with a playground set into a grove of pines run by an older, but vibrant community member whom even the chief of police referred to as "Miss Ginny". (Yes, it remains in my memory as magical as it sounds). And when I walked into that renovated Victorian and saw the kids working quietly with wooden toys, doing advanced math, and reading in corners surrounded by romantic mosquito netting, they had me, hook, line, and sinker. Then they showed us their multi-cultural corner, that morning's presentation on nature, and told us about their afternoon arts programming, including yoga, capoeira, and violin lessons... well, you know the rest... I toured the other two schools with just Fiona and was given rather perfunctory summaries of everything. No children ran up and gave the head mistress spontaneous hugs like at the Montessori school.
And would Fiona thrive at any of these places? I absolutely believe so. But there is also this strong desire I have, (which I more than suspect I got from my mother. If you've visited this blog, you've likely read about all the Historical Society Teas at which she had me serving cucumber sandwiches), to raise a 19th century child, which the Montessori modeled school seemed to reinforce. It is the right combination of "old school", (quite literally) and "woke" to both shield her from and awaken her to our time. If that sounds like an oxymoron, it is, but this is also a complicated time we live in. She'll do "work" within a limited structure in a home-like environment to ease her transition from being full time, and without a zillion multi-colored, speed of light options. I feel she has so many years of a conventional, desk-bound academic classroom ahead of her, she may as well have a different experience now.
There is an important piece of the puzzle here for me, that sold me on this place which I didn't even consciously realize I was looking for. And that is that I want our daughter to have a foundation that involves a broad look at history. And yes, the part of me that knows that she still can barely get her own pants on without assistance can laugh at the part of me that also knows this context is important for her and her future learning; that "new and improved", though a highly American value, does not always mean better.
Aside from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Fiona has barely seen anything onscreen that was created past 1970. There are reasons for this:
a. Limited screen time in our house
b. Parents who are more fond of classics than "the latest thing", (we are opera singers, after all)
c. The fact that a bunch of contemporary childrens' shows are edited to be super fast, choppy, and manically brightly colored. We noticed right away that exposure to even newer episodes of Sesame Street made our toddler super irritable afterward. This is just one reason Fred Rogers is so revered in our time- the pace of his programming.
d. Our distinct ability at this age to cherry pick what she is exposed to before she does go to school and the husband is plunged back into his years of teaching the music of Disney's Frozen to a bunch of obsessed middle-schoolers. Yes, he truly does want to Let it go.
While the themes in more contemporary films may strive to be more enlightened with regard to feminism and diversity, we find the musical styles of the latest fads that haven't stood the test of time are infinitely more annoying. And we still have plenty of options in retro culture to introduce her to a wider swath than solely the perils of princess culture. And while representation in media is important and hard fought for, nothing is going to make up for parents talking explicitly and frankly with children about race and ability at a young age.
If this all sounds like controlling parenting, that's because it is. Because she is three years old. We're allowed to filter before she's relinquished from the metaphorical nest. I sing old camp songs, non-creepy nursery rhymes, and yes, opera to her, because they are a part of our broader lineage. I sing the "My little girl" section of Carousel's Soliloquy to her as a lullabye with lyrics that I changed to be more feminist. She, like myself at her age, has seen snippets of The Sound of Music and her namesake, Brigadoon. Right now, her favorite characters for dress-up are Tigger and Herme the elf from the 1964 stop motion Christmas special of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. That's right. The one who wants to be a dentist. You just never really know what they'll glob onto. And she has no idea that either of these characters are just not the absolute coolest.
And if she gets to school and immediately discovers Moana and My Little Pony, then so be it. (Are those even cool anymore?) And if she thinks her mother is pretty lame, then that's ok too. They say the most important values instilled in you at a formative age come back to you as an adult. As much as I rolled my eyes at my mother's black and white movies as a tween, I have maintained an ardent love for classic films as an adult. Fiona will still eventually have a long view of our cultural history, or at least I hope.
