>Memories… Or the Lack Thereof
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This column originally appeared in the Nashville Scene.
I started feeling the parenting pressure even before my daughter was born.”So which preschools are you looking at?” a friend asked at a party after commenting on the size of my pregnant belly.
“Preschools?” I said, confused. “Well, I’m working from home, so we don’t need daycare.”
“Daycare?!” she snorted. “You’ve got to sign up for that the same day those two little lines show up on the First Response stick. Honey, I’m talking about preschool. I mean, you don’t want your kid to end up at the Happy Handz Wee School back behind Wendy’s, now do you? Because that’s the only place that’ll have an opening if you don’t get your name on some wait lists.”
After that embarrassing experience, I vowed to never again get behind the curve on making the most of my future daughter’s formative years. According to the talk I heard from other parents and on television, her entire future hinged on whether I made sure she could read, speak Italian, write in cursive and snow ski before she started kindergarten. Preschool became a major concern, but in order to be prepared for her educational debut, my fetus needed to start forming important social alliances as soon as possible. It was time to find a playgroup, STAT.
That’s how I ended up seated on the floor of a woman’s home not too long afterward, my 3-month-old daughter propped up in my lap. She couldn’t talk yet or eat solid foods. She couldn’t even sit up on her own, nor could any of the children in the laps of the moms around me. Yet the air of quiet satisfaction among us was palpable. While other babies were lying around, chewing on toys and staring at the ceiling, we were giving our children a jumpstart on socialization skills. Watch out, Ivy League!
My belief in the importance of playgroup was so strong that I persisted in attending even after I ended up on the outs with the group for refusing to make a purchase when one of our meetings turned into a surprise Pampered Chef party. (In my defense, how many onion slicers does one person need?) Despite the vow of silence most of the other moms seemed to have taken against me, I resolutely continued bringing in my daughter each week, anxiously waiting for her to stop drooling and form some emotional bonds with her peers, dammit.
Eventually, that group disbanded — or at least pretended to, so I would keep my Pampered Chef-hating self away — and I formed my own. For the next three years, I hosted a two-hour play session in my playroom every Tuesday. In the name of early socialization, I killed myself cleaning the house. I made coffee. I baked breakfast treats. I filled tiny sippy cups with juice. I did it all knowing that I was making a difference in my tiny daughter’s life. I dearly hoped that she’d one day recall her playgroup as the first step in a meteoric rise to fame that would culminate in a Nobel Prize, an Oscar, or a daytime talk show. But at the very least, the knowledge that she’d have her playgroup years as proof of how much I loved her was enough for me.
And so I wasn’t even slightly prepared when, a year and a half after our final playgroup curtain call, Punky asked me a strange question. “Mommy,” she said, “who is Emma?”
“Emma was in your playgroup,” I told her.
“My what?”
“Your playgroup,” I said. “You know, when you and all your friends used to get together up in the playroom. You played with them every week until you were 4. Remember?” “No,” she said.
“You remember Emma,” I said.
“Well, I don’t remember what she looks like,” Punky said.
“What about Ava?” I asked, frowning. “Nope,” Punky said.
“Stevie?” “No.”
“Sally and Jake?” “Uh-uh.”
“You seriously don’t remember your playgroup,” I said.
“I don’t.”
Just like that, all my hard work went right down the drain. There would be no playgroup accolades in my future. But if I felt any devastation about it, it was tempered by relief. After a bout with mommy burnout, I’m employing a very different strategy with Punky’s 2-year-old brother, a strategy known simply as …
Absolutely nothing.
This time around, I think I’ll save the bulk of my energy for a time when my kid will actually remember me using it.
