You Can Go Now, Mommy

It was her first day of kindergarten and I couldn’t quite leave. The classroom smelled of crayon, paste, and Play-Doh, and the perky Mrs. Darnell smiled cheerily as she steered her new students outside for a game of Duck Duck Goose and a last good-bye to straggling parents. The children in the playground were noisy and bouncy and as colorful as confetti, but to me the moment felt poignant and historical. Raising a child is a series of good-byes, and kindergarten is the first of them – the beginning of memories that don’t include you, a whole new set of characters and experiences that parents will only hear about secondhand. I found a viewing point through the fence along the schoolyard and positioned myself for a good long secret look.But I was soon discovered.

“You can go now, Mommy,” she said to me, and I feel as though she has been telling me that ever since.I had decked her out in red and white that morning with ribbons in her hair, and she proudly clutched a vinyl loose-leaf binder with a picture of a kitty. I didn’t think kindergarteners needed binders, but she had insisted. How had someone as neurotic and insecure as myself raised such an optimistic eager beaver? Where were the clinginess, anxiety, and tears? This kid was confident, excited, and ready to go.I flashed back to my own first day of kindergarten in 1957 at P.S. 179. I walked with my brothers to the brooding brick building, was escorted into an auditorium filled with frightened children, and had a room number pinned to my blouse. We were organized into lines and in a slow and sorry procession we trudged up the stairs into our designated classrooms. There was a conscious attempt at cheer in the kindergarten rooms, with their tiny tables and miniature oak chairs, big orange cut-outs of cardboard autumn leaves, wooden blocks, picture books, and red geraniums in the windows. I was shy and compliant, but I wondered why I had been brought here, and that sick feeling in my stomach never did go away.

My teacher was Mrs. Barmatz, a small woman with short black hair who read us stories and assigned us chores. We vied for the privilege of bringing her smock or slippers to her, or of clapping the erasers into big clouds of chalk dust. There were peculiar customs to get used to, such as lying still on a smelly mat pretending to nap. Or holding hands in circle games with boys whose skin felt like damp marshmallow. We learned songs about bluebirds and robins and London Bridge. Sometimes we could draw pictures, and that was the best, but such pleasures were parceled out in parsimonious packets. We were regulated by bells and limits that seemed painfully arbitrary. Just as you were losing yourself in the crayon colored ruffles of your lady’s twirly skirt, it was time for crackers and containers of milk. Just when you discovered a finger paint technique for three-dimensional swirls, along came recess. There was a boy named Howard who cried all the time, a girl named Amy who kept throwing up, and Bruce, who rather publicly peed his pants. I already hated school.

“But school has changed since the Dark Ages,” my husband told me, “and more important, Miranda isn’t you; she didn’t grow up with that sadness in her heart.” He was referring to the discord and tragedy of the house that I grew up in, events that colored my perception of the world and left me without a sense of what normal looks like. Is it possible to transcend the anguish of a bad childhood? Is it possible to invent a way of mothering when you didn’t have a model? I think it is, but you’re never sure. And when your own kid first steps over the threshold and into the world, even her smiles don’t quell the shakiness you feel.

But she returned to me daily with astonishing reports: Mrs. Darnell likes to laminate things. Octopuses are in the same food chain as I am. Dena tried to give me her cold, but I wouldn’t take it. Lauren Tocker is such a talker! The Sneetches used to have stars on their bellies. Tomorrow is M-day and I’m in the circle!I began to see that Kindergarten would be different this time around. Kindergarten was a place of joy and possibility, a place to discover new perspectives, a place for sharing and taking turns. Kindergarten was the perfect first step for Miranda and me to become our best selves.

I’ve said many good-byes to her since then and been told to leave quite often. We’ve been through eras of awkwardness, horse obsession, middle school heartbreak, righteous recalcitrance, even a stint with burgundy hair. At times she has been convinced that my primary functions are to annoy and embarrass her, and I’m very good at both. At the bottom of it all, she knows she is loved, and this is what trumps all errors. I have given my daughter what I did not have, and it's allowed her to gracefully leave. I still hover at the occasional fence, hoping for a glimpse, but I’m motivated by curiosity, not fear, and although a parent never sleeps soundly, I think we’ve done as well as we could.

Three years ago we accompanied her to Boston and helped her move into her dorm room. We were to fly home in the morning. “I think I’ll stay with you and Dad in the hotel tonight,” she said, “I’m not into these abrupt transitions.”

At daybreak we kissed her and left.