It was my first school morning as a parent. You’d think I’d be doing the happy dance all the way to the car and heading straight to a cafe to celebrate. Instead I was speed walking with my head down. I needed to focus my energy on stifling the ugly cry that was fighting its way out. Suddenly, a sob escaped. I felt stupid. I mean, I was so ready for this day. I had been preparing myself for months. Why was I a basket case right now?
I never understood why parents got SO emotional about their kids starting school until about a week before watching my princess walk through the door of her Kindergarten classroom. While exciting, it also made me sad and I had trouble figuring out why. As Micaela acted out and complained of being bored at home the last 5 or 6 months, I would nod to myself and think, “Yep. She’s ready. I’m beyond ready!” In my mind, Kindergarten was the light at the end of the tunnel when things were supposed to start getting easier for me, for us.
I was eager. I was prepared. And then those feelings changed. The week before school started I would think to myself, this is my daughter’s last Wednesday to just sit and play all morning, or her last Friday of “freedom”. The school schedule would become our schedule. Instead of planning days how we wanted to, we were going to plan them around the school calendar. I fought back tears visualizing the moment she would walk through the door of the classroom without me. For me that moment symbolized a rite of poassage from co-dependent to independent. Those precious “baby” years of having mom and dad as the center or their universe would be over. I would now be the parent of a school-age girl who would become less reliant on me, until of course she was off at college and had a bank account balance of $0. Then I’d be her best friend once again!
I knew I would have to start letting go, to let her make her own choices and her own mistakes while I wasn’t around.
I knew that I would not be able to be as present as I was when she was in preschool. There would be no daily reports of each activity she did, whether she ate her snack, or what toy she enjoyed playing with. I’d need to rely on her to tell me more than “fine” when I asked her questions about her day. There would be no casual banter with her teachers inside the classroom before the start of the school day or when I picked her up. I had to start letting go for her sake and for mine. She needed to carve her own path and be her own person, and I needed to give her the breathing room to do that. That was a hard fact to accept and the reason why this parent who couldn’t wait for the life-changing days the school years were supposed to provide found herself so sentimental and emotional.
My daughter started Kindergarten today. The day of saying good-bye to my baby and hello to my big girl has finally arrived. It wasn't easy and I too needed to make a rite of passage and welcome the school years, and the independent thinker my princess was to become.
