To push or not to push

Let's just start with the obvious: we live in a rather extreme part of the country, in a particularly extreme neighborhood. Extreme parenting, that is. And from here the view is a bit hazy as to "age appropriate" and "useful" and "all for show" and "productive." Our general stance has been entirely against pushing our children. When the fusspot had no receptive language skills at 18 months, we grudgingly agreed to a series of hearing tests and an EI evaluation, but we certainly did not push for extra services. And when we started to talk about "preschool application forms" last fall we resolved that the fusspot would stay another year in her home daycare with her little brother: coloring, going to the playground, and picking her nose for up to 20% of her waking hours (yes, we are trying to cut down the cumulative hours on that one a bit), despite the rather loud extortions from our very own daycare provider that she needed preschool (and piano! and ballet! and swimming!) if she was ever going to get into college (it really doesn't help that our daycare provider has both a young child and one just about to head off to college).

And yet, somehow our living room wall looks like this:
And by the way, I cannot tell you how much this particular combination cracks me up. First, there's the electrical tape patching up a home-made insulator for the water pipes and you can see the cracks in the wall. Then there's the delightful absurdity of hanging montessori sandpaper letters (they look quite plain on the wall because they are actually meant to be handled and textural) next to imaginative waldorf letters (the swan and tiger) next to total Americana: beautiful flower alphabet letters which would stump even a 30-year-old. I mean, can you really recognize sweetpeas on the wall? And would you expect your preschool-age kid to do so? The goal is the same but the methods are completely incongruous. And the letter choice comes from a more phonics theme (both letters are in her name).

And then there's the fact that I'll be leaving work early today to take my daughter to "preschool prep class." Ok, so I chose this class because it is: close, cheap, and incredibly designed for 2-year-olds with little siblings in tow and I was hoping to meet some moms in our new neighborhood. But preschool prep class?

On the other hand, the fusspot picked up a book that we bought last week and read it out-loud cover to cover this morning. Twice. And she got about 90% of the words correct (this is obviously pure memorization). She spends at least an hour listening to books every day. She's incredibly verbal and socially clued in and thus far seems to be rocking that delightful developmental "average" that we were so worried about earlier. And so it's easy to go a bit over the top - she's scheduled to take both preschool prep (1 hour a week, late afternoon for working moms) and dance this fall and probably also music (we have a groupon which will cover the fall but I'll drop it if it's too much). She's already immersed in a foreign-language daycare situation.

And then something happens which reminds me that the hazy, fuzzy line probably needs to be a bit brighter. Her dear daycare buddies from last year had to move from NYC to one of those flyover states. And the little boy, who is 6 and in kindergarten, calls almost every day to our daycare to complain about being bored. And I'm sure he is bored in class. I mean, the kid reads well and can do some fairly sophisticated math for someone who still needs help wiping their ass. But he's also bored because he has never had to entertain himself at home for 3 hours on a Sunday morning. He was either in daycare (pretty relaxed but plenty of stimulation and lots of other kids around) or in soccer, piano, language, or swimming class or being lugged around the city to a million exciting "enrichment classes." He's 6 and he has no idea how to play for a few hours at home alone. And if my darling fusspot at 6 can't play I feel that we will have utterly failed as parents (on the other hand, eh, we're going to fail at some point. Maybe we should get it over at this point?).

And today I had a long coffee with a dear childhood friend. A friend whose mother was one of those incredible superwoman mothers. No, she wasn't a high-powered executive who also raised 3 kids and ran a homeless shelter, she was a SAHM who had the most incredible house. I still have dress-up costumes which she sewed for me that I have given to the fusspot 25 years later. I still remember crazy cooking experiments she let us do in her kitchen. I still remember detailed theater productions we staged on the back porch. And her daughter, who is my age, has plenty of prestigious advanced degrees and a successful career and somehow her mother still dreams that she'll quit work and be a SAHM. As my friend put it, what was the point of pushing me through some of the hardest schools in the country if that's what you were really dreaming for my future?

So here we are in that weird year where my fusspot will turn 3 (!) and we somehow have to decide how much is appropriate, what friends we need to just laugh at when they try to compare their toddlers to ours, and how to still make the most of living in an incredible city.