DRAMAS

Last September, my now two-yearold son started daycare, and the first month was a horror of Lovecraftian proportions. Nothing really prepares you for the reality of dropping your kid off at daycare and watching them recoil in a mixture of shock, panic and confusion. There were tears, there was much screaming and, during his transition month, I lost 4kg wondering whether I was being a crappy father for leaving him in the care of complete strangers for hours at a time, five days a week.

This isn’t a unique fear. Ask most parents, and they’ll tell you how guilty they felt dropping their kids off at daycare or school for the first time. It’s its own genre of parental anxiety that has inspired countless listicles and instructional articles meant to soften the blow of letting go of your kids for the first time.

But if you’ve seen this script play out in your own life, then you know how this story ends: my son is fine. It took a little under a month, but there are (usually) no more tears at drop off, no days spent sulking instead of playing and, for the most part, my son is happy with his new surroundings.

The drama of school runs has reminded me of a couple of fundamental truths about parenting. The first is that our children do not exclusively belong to us.

It might seem platitudinous, but it really does take a village to raise a child. On the days I felt like pulling my son out of daycare, there were always other parents around to tell me that better days were on the horizon. From friends, much older family members and my own parents, each chipped in to let me know this was all perfectly normal and part of the process of re-adjusting.

In fact, the idea of parenthood as a communal exercise almost predates time and makes much more sense now given that the majority of homes are headed by single parents or dual-employed parents. American sociologist Karen Hansen (best known for her book Not-So-Nuclear Familes: Gender, Class and Networks of Care), points out that dual-employed parents often enlist the help of nannies, friends and families anyway. Parenthood is an emotionally draining and isolating experience. The more help you can get, the better. Secondly, my son’s adventures at daycare have taught me how healthy it is to foster independence in children. Before daycare, my son was obsessively clingy. Like most children, he’d follow me everywhere: to the car, to the shops, to the yard and the toilet. School has fundamentally changed his limited worldview. In his own way, he now understands that life doesn’t start and stop within the four walls of our home. There’s a world out there, waiting to be explored, and his responsibility is to explore and enjoy it as thoroughly as possible.

But, perhaps, the biggest truth I’ve learnt since my son started daycare is the art of letting go. I was raised by helicopter parents (sorry, Mom and Dad). My parents definitely cared about me and my siblings but, given that they are both police officers, they were almost always panicking about our safety. They were fiercely overprotective.

This is a fear I have done my best not to inherit. As dangerous as the world is, it’s also filled possibility and deep unknown truths that my son must figure out himself. How to make friends? How to keep them? How to ride a bike, and at what speed? These are questions he’ll have to figure out himself through trial, error and repetition. My role is not to play omnipresent invigilator, but to assure him that, every time he falls off a bike, he edges closer to mastering a lifelong technique.

As I write this, daycare is closed, and we don’t know when he will return. But on that day, I expect a torrent of tears, early-morning tantrums and teary dropoffs. But on the other side lies something infinitely more profound: a well-adjusted child slowly being introduced to the world, the concept of community and the assurance that, when Daddy says he’s leaving for a few hours, he always keeps his promise and comes back. Which proves the old cliché true: school is about more than preparing you for a job. It ultimately prepares you for life.