This evening, Hubby and I have been watching some special (on HBO, maybe?) about the cutthroat competition for placement in Manhattan, New York's private preschools.  Apparently there are many thousands of people who buy into the trickle down, or up, theory of if you want to get into an Ivy League College, you have to get into a feeder high school.  If you want to get into one of those high schools, you have to blahblahblahblah so you absolutely must get into the right nursery school before your kid is old enough to figure out that when you play 'Peek-A-Boo', you don't actually go away!    
    Meanwhile, here I sit, landlocked hundreds of miles from any coastline, and I can't even decide if I want to send my four-year-old to preschool at all!  There are plenty of pros:  I'd love to socialize her more, she would enjoy it, she loves learning, it would help her adapt to a school day so that kindergarten would make for an easier transition... but there are plenty of cons, as well:  They grow up fast enough already, she loves to do 'schoolwork' right here at home, she's learned so much that I don't think she'll be behind once kindergarten arrives, what's the difference between getting her used to a classroom now vs. next year (isn't that what kindergarten is for--or used to be?)... the list goes on and on-- even worse than this run-on sentence!!
    I can't believe the application process they are documenting on this show.  It's like trying to get into college!  And some of these preschools cost tens of thousands of dollars a year!  I can't imagine what they could be doing that would matter to a two- or three-year-old that would cost that much money.  Play-doh is dirt cheap.  So are crayons and cardboard boxes and Ritz crackers.  I am not at all undermining the importance of a quality caregiver/teacher to help children explore.  I'm just saying that this has gone so far beyond even being about the kids at all-- and all while the parents are spouting off about how they just want to give their child the best start!  This is, in my opinion, a grotesque form of keeping up with the Joneses.
    My kids want to learn new things all the time.  Very little of it requires specialized tools at their ages that aren't already in our home.  When we find a praying mantis on our sliding glass door, we watch him day by day to see how he grows.  When we dump popcorn all over the floor, we practice team work and spatial reasoning skills while we clean it up. The older one can write her first and last name and is sounding out words-- why?  Because we have lots of three things in our house:  crayons, paper and books!  And we dance.  All the time.  How's that for P.E. class?  
    So apparently I'm not quite cut out for that kind of life. Whew!

CL