Breaking Away
My firstborn started kindergarten last Thursday. It was, of course, a big day. I made her pose for a couple pictures before school, wearing her new uniform, and then I took a few more when I picked her up.
I was the picture of parental dorkiness, I’m sure, but I didn’t cry or get choked up like some do. This will be her third year in a school setting. I can finally separate from her without getting emotional or anxious or feeling guilty.
And her? Please. I hardly get so much as a backward glance anymore.
Her burgeoning independence is both heartening and heartbreaking all at once.
You grow a child inside you…
From mere cells they become full-fledged little beings with beating hearts and imploring eyes, depending on you for their very lives
…and all too soon, you have to start letting them go. They will never again need you the way they did before.
That is without a doubt, for me, the hardest part of being a mother.
So utterly bittersweet…it’s nature’s way.
And while intellectually, I know and understand this, it really doesn’t make it any easier.
(It should probably be noted that I am also the kind of sentimental fool who cries like a baby every single time I watch a nature show where the mother jaguar/cheetah/leopard, having determined her cubs are able to fend for themselves and must not depend on her anymore, leaves them, presumably to go hunt for food, and never returns. It absolutely slays me; like tearing my heart out with a butter knife…)
My daughter (my youngest) starts Kindergarten tomorrow and I keep hoping I will be like you, but I think I’ll feel a tear or two. If only she was nasty and difficult like her brothers. I’m going to miss her.
I got all teary eyed and choked up just reading this. My oldest just turned 2 and I can’t even imagine watching her get on that bus for the first time and leave me and go make her own friends and be her own person. I can’t do it. See, now I’m crying, literally, just thinking about it. What if no one talks to her and she’s all alone? What if someone hurts her? What if someone is mean to her? What if someone makes her cry? What if someone makes fun of her? What if everyone absolutely adores her? No matter what happens it will hurt because she is doing it all without me. I will have to let her go though b/c I refuse to be “that” mom.
Enough about what a freak I am. I hope your little one had the most fantastic first day of school ever!
Happy birthday!
Sounds like you handled the kindergarten thing very well. I, on the other hand, will definitely be a sniveling mess, since that will probably be the first school my kid goes to (besides the one-day-a-week program her sisters attended from three on).
Good for you both! :)
Yes! That’s exactly what I mean about it being both heartening and heartbreaking.
You know it’s a good thing, you know that being independent is best for them but yet, it represents the end of an era…the end of very early childhood, the end of being needed in that special way.
Conversely, no matter how much I hate it, I could never begrudge her that independence
…and therein lies the proverbial paradox that makes me so damned melancholic.
We’re nowhere near that milestone but I dread even think about it.
Hope it gets better for you soon.
My daughter will go to Kindergarten this year, too, and in a uniform! But wow, you’ve already got school going on? Again, wow.
I am curious how this will go. She has been in daycare her whole life until two months ago. She was always independent, and you described so well the dichotomy in the way that feels; both making you proud as a parent and ripping your heart out. Man!
Lately she’s been much more clingy to me, which has been weird but also kind of nice to know she still needs me…
Glad to have found your site. I will make sure to check it out more often
God, I love reading all of you Moms now! It makes me feel, well, I guess more ready than I was before. I mean I am not running out the door to get a ovulation kit or anything but you guys are starting to make me think I may be actually be able to keep this thing alive. At least long enough to get to kindergarten!
Congrats to you and the little lady on her first day!
What a milestone! One I’m sure I’ll be a trainwreck during, of course. I just feel so vulnerable about my little guy growing up. Daily.
I can relate to this too - I posted about my baby getting older in a post called “Grown Up” last month on my blog. It breaks my heart to see her maturing, and at the same time, I am so proud of her. But, if I could freeze her I totally would, and relish in her cute 2-year-oldness forever and ever!
Oh, man, my heart is breaking. That was such a sweet, and sad and beautiful post. My sister in law told me this great quoe: children don’t belong to us, children come through us. or something like that. I probably botched it.
Lisa
Wait, nobody told me our kids have (or worse…will want!) to leave our side at some point. Damn it! If only I knew this 13 months ago…
Perfectly said Izzy. I think about that all the time. My children’s independance both elates me and crushes me in the same breath.
This mother stuff never lets up. Daaaaang.
Hi Izzy, this post and my son’s nearing first day of high school started me remembering his first days of kindergarten. I wrote about it here and linked it back to you (for the inspiration.)
http://ltuande.blogspot.com/2006/08/kindergarten.html
I feel a little funny putting a link to my blog here but I just wanted to let you know that your post got me thinking.
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