OMG! Whatever you do, don't let your children get behind!

I wander around the internet most mornings, reading. I read quite a few blogs, and follow links to articles and ideas. It keeps me occupied far longer than it probably should, if you really want to know. Time I could be spending with my friend the washing machine, or gazing at the inside of my eyelids for 'just another half hour.'

Yesterday, I was reading a blog written by a mom with one child. He's almost three years old. What I read yesterday has me bothered.

Her son is really demanding, you see. He asks for snacks and wants the television on and wants to play outside and wants to have a bath and wants her to play with him. She hardly has any time to herself.

Well honey, children are a pain in the ass on occasion.
That's how they work.
Perhaps you shouldn't have them if you're not willing to put your own things on the back burner for awhile. You know... priorities.

She absolutely can't WAIT to put him in preschool. She's been tutoring him so that he will be "smart enough" to get into the good preschools. She's excited and nervous about the tests he will be taking. It's very important to her that he not be behind when he starts kindergarten.

Where does one even start a dialog about ideas like that?
Behind what? Some educrat's ideas on what a child should know and when they should know it? I find it tragic that in our society, a child can be deemed 'behind' at age 5 and never catch up. How screwed up is that, really?

And how have we become so weird about education?
Do people even formulate their own thoughts about it anymore, or do they just do what everyone else does?
Send them to daycare at six weeks.
Get them in preschool as soon as they're toilet trained.
There are people who believe the compulsory age for formal education should be lowered to age 5. And let's just make it full day K.
Mandatory full day K. After all, we need to compete globally and we don't want our kids to get behind.
Anyone who has ever spent time with a five year old knows many reasons why that's stupid.

So why the rush?

I know there are parents who need to work for a living. There are single parents, parents at poverty level, and parents who are working for the insurance benefits. I understand that, and I think they deserve everyone's moral support.

However... I don't think having a brand new car, a yearly vacation, expensive clothes and the best of everything are valid reasons to leave your children with someone else during the most important years of their lives.

Until they've spent several years being indoctrinated as consumers, children don't care at all about brand names, exclusive neighborhoods and what kind of car their family has anyway. All they really want is hugs and someone to talk to.

I don't have all the answers.
In fact, I don't have any of them.
I know what worked for my family, and that we were willing to go without just about everything for me to be able to stay home and take care of our kids.

I never worried about them being behind anything except when I needed to pee and one of them was behind the bathroom door. I solved that by sending them out into the hallway, where they occupied themselves sliding Legos, pennies, and little notes under the door to me.