Monday morning kvetch

Have been rapped on the knuckles twice before 9am today, once for being too lax a parent with regards to my child's logistics, once for being too overbearing a parent with regards to my child's logistics. Argh. I want to go raise the kids on a commune.

1. The schoolbus driver called me over and told me he can't let Edith off the bus without a parent waiting at the stop.

Oh, I say, I thought that rule just applied to kindergartners. That's what he told us last year.

No, he says, he's responsible for seeing that all kids get to one of their parents.

But other kids get off the bus without parents there, I say, confused.

Yes, but they get on and off at the same stop, morning and afternoon. He can't let a child get on at one stop in the morning and off at a different stop in the afternoon, unless a parent meets her. Then he knows that that's what we want her to do.

But we wrote down on the bus schedule that that's what we want her to do, get on at X stop in the morning (it gives her 20 extra minutes to eat breakfast) and off at Y stop in the afternoon (it gets her home 20 minutes earlier). Wasn't that why they gave us a form on which to choose a morning stop and an afternoon stop? I'm affirming now that that's what we want.

It doesn't matter.

Apparently Edith can safely get off the bus one door down from our house at 4:15 without a parent standing on the curb but cannot safely get off four doors up from our house at 3:55 without a parent on the curb. Unless she also gets on four doors up from our house at 7:35 a.m., rather than one door down at 7:55. In which case it's okay. I'm irked.

So why not just go out and meet her, ask my reasonable readers? We probably will. Often we'll leave a sleeping toddler alone in the house to do so, which is, of course, much safer.

But even if Alice is not sleeping, and more to the point in my mind, is that Edith takes pride in walking herself home from the busstop, and we are working hard to instill in Edith a sense that she's capable of doing things independently. I resent being told I have to helicopter parent. I am nostalgic for my own days walking two blocks home from the bus stop on a busy road with the other neighborhood kids, our moments of freedom between the classroom and home. (Never mind the number of us who were latch-key kids, for which you'd probably be arrested today. And no, the world was not "so much safer then.")

I am constantly agape at college students who can't come up with a paper topic or figure out whether it's important to schedule their flight home after the final exam without bringing their parents into the equation. Maybe it doesn't all hinge on the first-grade busstop, but I think we're bringing up a generation of sheltered kids who may be bright and have had many opportunities but are often ill-equipped for basic daily challenges.

Yes, I know that many kids are neglected and abused for lack of proper attention. I understand that different circumstances in different situations or neighborhoods might make for different judgments about what's appropriate. But that's the point: It used to be a matter of judgment.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a rule follower. Tom and I readily do lots of things by the 21st-century rules: sign forms left and right, offer three back-up contact people to respond to every sneeze. We're active in the school, develop a relationship with our kids' teachers, respond promptly to all communications, are aware of what's being taught, and help and encourage our child to get her work done. We like doing most of that--indeed, it's why we signed on to be parents.

So don't make me feel like a heel because I think 1 minute of unsupervised time walking home in her own neighborhood is appropriate for a six year old who, despite years of patient encouragement, is still reluctant to go the bathroom alone or fetch her shoes from her closet by herself.

It may even be critical.

2. Alice's daycare class used to have 14 kids in it. Then a bunch of them aged out, and now they have 6 kids. Tom has slightly different work hours now, including a mandatory weekly staff meeting during hours when he had been caring for Alice in the past. We're hopeful that we can adjust our daycare schedule to get coverage on that day, since the class is under-subscribed. We ask, and the director looks frazzled and says she'll have to see. We understand, we assure her. Scheduling must be a nightmare, and we realize you can't make special exceptions. Only if it works.

The word comes back: They need to hold those spots for kids who will be aging up in March. March? We can't have it until then? At this point she says abruptly that the business office needs consistency in the schedule, and they can't start meeting the exact needs of each individual family. Of course.

I'm not used to rocking the boat. I'm a good girl. I follow directions and don't annoy people. Now I feel embarrassed and ashamed.

And I still need Tuesday childcare.