Kindergarten Readiness

You’ve had a baby, congratulations! Read this book, it will teach you how to be the perfect mother and the outcome will be the perfect child. This is very serious. Have fun! You will need to make a thousand decisions about how you will care for this baby, and of course, you will need to get him ready for kindergarten.

An Account of Kindergarten:

Is he potty trained? Can he identify letters, numbers, shapes? Can he spell his name, say goodbye to his mother quickly in the morning, then sit quietly in a circle with other children and direct his attention to story time? No, he cannot. That is very serious. That is a very serious problem. The serious adults will assign extra instruction time, extra work at home, extra books, extra sitting quietly in a circle with other children, and his mother absolutely must not linger at drop off because she’s making it worse. Now, he’s mad. Now, he’s refusing to do his work. Now, he’s thrown a chair down at lunch time. Now, he’s missing recess time to atone for the thrown chair. The boy is mad and sad. He is too sad to sit quietly in a circle with other children and direct his attention to story time. He is so sad, that he will refuse to do his work, can’t possibly hold a pencil and write one more letter, and will throw a chair down at lunch time. The very serious and busy adults try to help the sad boy in all kinds of ways. They do their very best with sticker charts, and therapies, and medicines. The sad boy knows that the adults are not happy. He wants the adults to be happy, so he does his very best, too. All day long he does his very best so that he can sit during story time, and sit during lunch time, and play during recess, then walk quietly in a straight line in the hall, and hold a pencil to write his letters without throwing a chair so that when it’s time to go home and he’s made the adults happy all day long, he goes into the kitchen, throws a chair, and his mother thinks “what am I doing wrong?”. The sad boy’s sad mother hands him a tablet so she can have a moment and make dinner. The sad boy is happy now! He sits quietly, eats a snack, and plays on his tablet. He doesn’t want to put down his tablet when it’s time for dinner, so he brings it to the table with him. It makes him happy at dinner, and his sad mother needs him to be happy for a few more minutes. He doesn’t want to put down his tablet when it’s time for bed, so he takes it to bed with him. His sad mother is too tired to fight about this. He falls asleep, and his mother thinks “tomorrow will be better”. It’s time for the sad boy to wake up and get ready for school. Yesterday was too hard, he is too sleepy, he already knows he can’t sit quietly in the circle today, the lights are too bright, the other children are too noisy, his mother leaves (quickly) when he goes to that place. He refuses to get dressed. He throws his clothes across the room and cries. He crawls under the bed and hides from the day ahead of him. Now, they’ll be late to school. His mother is serious. His serious, sad mother is scared, and she thinks “what am I doing wrong?”. He can’t make his mother happy. She is happy when he is happy and he can’t be happy about going to school. Now, they are both very serious.