Bad Moms Send Their Kids To School

Today, my kid starts school.

She’s two and a half. And she’s ready. She’s very, very, very ready. She watches and thinks and learns, her little brain working furiously behind her eyes as she stares fixatedly at me whenever I try to thwart her plans for world domination.

It’s time. She needs more than I am able to give her. And it tears my heart out to say that. I’m a stay at home mom. Shouldn’t I be able to give her everything she needs? Shouldn’t I be the one to teach her, to sit with her and read stories, help her learn words, songs, movements, how to use scissors, sparkles, glue, paint, how to bake cookies, how to fold laundry, everything of importance in a two year old’s world? Isn’t that my job?

I’ve had to face the fact: I’m not entirely cut out to be a stay at home mom. Being Avery’s Mom is the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. She is a gift, a delight. And yet, am I the right person to provide her with absolutely everything? Is there room for teachers, for peers, for friends?  Especially now, when I have Work, and A Job, and it is getting harder and harder to balance doing that work and parenting, especially since she Dropped Her Nap (capitalized because every parent knows exactly what Kind Of Torture dropping their last nap is) and Thomas or Mr Maker has to fill that gap whenever I have a con call or a deadline. And that’s not the parent I want to be.

So now she’s two and a half, and I have a lot of work to do in the next two months, and it’s the right time for her developmentally and for me career-wise for her to start school. I know this. This is fact.

But still, when I take her in there with her little backpack, with two changes of clothes and indoor shoes and extra diapers and my phone number plastered over everything she owns, I will feel like I’m leaving my heart in that room.

Because I am.