When my oldest daughter was in preschool, there was a mom none of us had ever met. The mystery mom's nanny brought her daughter to school every morning and picked her up every afternoon. The nanny came to Friday circle time and showed up for performances and events. We talked about this bogey-mom all the time. What kind of mother was too busy for drop-off? "Why bother to have children," we whispered to one another, "if you have no intention of participating in their lives?" Child neglect, that was what it was.
Ten years later, I am that mom. My fourth child is in preschool now, and most mornings his babysitter drops him off. My husband or I pick him up, but unlike the majority of children, Abraham is a Teddy Bear, which means, in his preschool's cloying parlance, that he stays in after-care until 3:30 instead of getting picked up at 1. He's also in before-care: He gets dropped off at 8:30. Because most kids come to school at 9 and leave at 1, there are some children and many mothers whom I've never met.
Not long ago, I was sitting in Friday circle time, glancing surreptitiously at my watch as we sang round 17 of "There's a Dinosaur Knocking at My Door," when a mom leaned over to me and whispered, "Wow! You're here. We never see you."
I almost coldcocked her. Stifling my embarrassed fury, I recalled that bogey-mom of so many years ago. If I could only remember her name, I'd write her a note of apology.
This was not the first time I had been confronted with the tyranny of preschool expectations, nor would it be the last. Shortly after the circle-time incident, the preschool "class mom" decided to delete the husbands from the class e-mail list, figuring that only the moms needed to be informed about classroom outings and schedule changes. We share those jobs in my family, and I sent back an e-mail to the group asking that, in the interest of egalitarian parenting, the men be reinstated. "After all," I wrote, "if I have to deal with things like Pizza Day, then so should my husband."
In reply, the group received an e-mail from a mom informing us that she (unlike, presumably, me) loved her children and considered Pizza Day to be a privilege, not a chore. I didn't know the mom whose ire I had sparked. I hadn't been at drop-off to meet her.
I forwarded the exchange to a friend, including, for effect, the expletive-laden response I would have sent were I not such a polite person. Except I didn't hit the forward button. I hit "Reply All." Half the moms stopped speaking to me, guaranteeing my permanent status as bogey-mom in preschool and probably beyond. Clearly, the one who should have been banned from preschool e-mailing was not my husband, but me.
