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Going Home Again
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Go Not to the Toddlers for Counsel
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Class Class Classy
Who knew New Yorkers were all so loopy? The way the New York Times plays it this week, all of Gotham's parents spend their days desperately smacking the "redial" buttons on their phones and popping Valium or Xanax or Librium like Pez candies to get their kids into the top, best, fanciest, chicest, coolest, kiddie enrichment programs ever. (Until very recently, the only time I had heard that term was in the context of entertaining Gus, the formerly stressed-out compulsive polar bear at the Central Park Zoo. Among his enrichment activities: a bubbling whirlpool in his swimming area, fruit frozen in giant ice blocks and peanut butter stuffed toys.)
I don't mind too much the thought that everyone is laughing at my expense. I can handle it at least as well as I handled being a United States citizen visiting Europe early in the War in Iraq, which is to say, I was unhappy that people were likely to automatically think the worst of me because of my passport origins, before I had a chance to show them how uniquely problematic I can be.
And what do people do for baby enrichment, you ask? Limited enrolment music classes, exclusive playgroups, language classes, swimming, mommy and me groups (though these sound a lot like playgroup- or is there a distinction I'm missing?). The key is that to be "good" these classes have to be very hard to get into (you have to register for them immediately after you deliver) and expensive. I have taken Felix to a few classes, though none of them could be called "exclusive," unless one means to imply, as was the case with our swimming class, that all of the other kids and parents would drop out by the end of the semester, leaving us alone with the teacher in the shallow end.
This spring I had toyed with worrying about my son being underscheduled, though by now that issue isn't even a candidate for a place on my List of Worries. During that brief haze I was forwarded a fascinating account of a lecture that had been given by the director the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development. According to the speaker, toddlers (children between 1 and 3) should not have so much structure and scheduling. What they chiefly need is to develop on their own without their parents enforcing agendas and interests upon them. Toddlers can become stressed from excessive classes because, while they do feel a strong urge to please their teachers and parents, they also might be realizing they don't care for these activities and be unable to express themselves. The net result, the speaker said, was that kids could easily resent all classes and become apathetic about potential interests later on. Her recommendation was to sparingly enroll toddlers only in non-structured open play classes. (I'm paraphrasing notes from a lecture so forgive my vagueness.)
So this New York Times piece does so many things. Readers who embrace everything and nothing can feel smug and desperate, inadequate and overachieving. But why does the article exist, if not to stir the pot, confirm caricatures, inspire jealousy, and twang the strings of discord between people of varying means? Why do we want to find it fascinating?
For my part, I don't have the interest or energy to compete for a space in "exclusive" classed, but I don't quite believe that my kid's weekly music excursion is cramping his style.
If nothing else, the Center for Toddler Development lecture should be a balm for those of us who don't pursue the latest and greatest. But I don't mean to hold it up as yet another way to be smug about child-rearing. There's so much of that going around already, why add to it?
posted by Elise at 7:36 AM
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