Damien Grant
‘Big school’ gives lessons in stress
Guilt is one aspect of parenting that I didn’t consider. Our son’s an only child, so there is guilt there. He obsessively watches a YouTube channel about some large American family called The Yeagers and expresses regret that he has no siblings. He’s not alone in watching The Yeagers, this oddly engaging family enjoys millions of viewers.
That he watches too much YouTube because parenting can be insufferably boring induces guilt, as does giving in to demands for treats, staying up too late and making ongoing concessions over the issue of teeth brushing. Guilt.
One thing I suffer no guilt over, however, is sending the urchin to daycare.
I know nothing about children, but it has become obvious since I got one that kids are drawn to other kids.
I assume it’s some sort of programming, but regardless of the why, he’s certain to grow up a much better adjusted adult than his father, as a result of spending the first few years of his life with other children – as opposed to out the back of a veterinary clinic.
However, the latest small crisis has tested even my nonchalant attitude to my parenting responsibilities and introduced a new parental horror: internalising the anxieties of one’s spawn.
Readers who can recall the Ford presidency may remember a film called Logan’s Run, a dystopian thriller where, at the age of 30, citizens are ‘‘renewed’’, a euphemism for being killed.
Daycare operates on the same premise. Once residents reach the age of five they are transported to ‘‘big school’’ – the equivalent of being culled from the comfortable little daycare world.
And it’s stressful.
You get to know the other little Gollum-like creatures as your kid grows up with them and when you ask your own about Hugo, or Florian, you are met with a sombre ‘‘he went to big school’’.
Schools run acclimatisation programmes to reduce the anxiety, but it’s still grim.
As the day of the child’s culling approaches, the stress increases.
When I asked my little person how he felt about going to big school I was met with a plaintive response: ‘‘Sad’’.
And he was. His face did that crumple evolution designed to crush the sternest parent’s inner resolve.
Daycare has been a feature of his life since before he acquired consciousness.
His friends, teachers, much of his world is confined in that small building and he is aware now that his time is coming. And he’s sad and a little stressed about that. And now so am I.