Before we had the Princeling, my h=usband and I used to make fun of the type of New York parents who apply to enroll their Precious Little Darlings in "the right" preschools before the PLD's are even conceived.
Then we had the Princeling.
In New York, perhaps more than in other cities, the level of competition and obsession involved in enrolling your child in school is so high that there are actual professionals you can hire to help you out. Yes, even for preschool. In a way, some of the obsessiveness makes a sick sort of sense. We are, after all, competing with the PLDs of some of the wealthiest families in the world, as well as celebrity offspring and the children of world diplomats. Some preschools are so prestigious and so famous, they are popularly known as the "Baby Ivies." Supposedly going to one of these schools pretty much guarantees that your child will then get into a prestigious grade school, then high school, then into the Ivy League University of your, I mean, your child's dreams.
We don't necessarily care what college the Princeling attends, or at least, we're not really thinking that far ahead just yet except to open up a 529 for him. He's only five months old. He can't even crawl yet, and still has trouble figuring out what to do with that pesky bottom arm when he tries to roll from his back to his tummy. These days I mostly focus on making sure he doesn't stick his feet in his poop when I change his diaper. We do know that we would like for him to attend a dual-language elementary school so that he will be fluent in both Spanish - the language of his father's Cuban heritage - as well as in English. For this reason, we have already glanced at some potential preschools. We mostly started this just for fun, to see what's out there.
What's out there?
Hyperventilating, hysterical, freaking BABY PRESCHOOL HELL is what.
I gave myself a nervous breakdown the one morning I spent at a Barnes & Noble café looking through a copy of "Manhattan Directory of Private Nursery Schools." Big mistake. The tuition alone at some of these places is more than one of my semesters at NYU. In order to send the Princeling to one of these schools, his father would have to get a second job, I'd have to work at least three jobs myself, and we would probably have to sell some vital organs as well. And, you know, never eat again. Remember, these are places that are offering, basically, glorified daycare for kids who still eat paste and color on themselves with markers. I know: I used to be a camp counselor for 3-5 year olds. That's what kids that age do. And yet we're supposed to shell out the cost of a house per year for the privilege of letting the Princeling do that at Le Academie McSnooty Snoot? Exsqueeze me?
Ah, but these are not just "glorified daycares," or so I've learned. Each special and unique institution of lower learning emphasizes that it will teach your child all of life's essential skills and make him such a wonderful, educated, polite, cultured, worldly, sensitive creature that kindergarten through 12th grade will practically be moot and we should just go ahead and send him to Oxford when he's four years old so he can get a degree in Political Science, which will really be a technicality since he'll already have a job lined up in Obama's cabinet by the time he's three and a half.
Call me crazy, but when it comes to preschool, my requirements seem pathetically low. I want the Princeling to learn his ABC's and 123's, some basic social skills (like, I don't know, just off the top of my head: don't stick Cheetos up your nose), and maybe do something creative now and then, like finger paint or sing a song. If he could learn Spanish in the process, great. Bonus! I don't necessarily need him to read Plato's "Republic" or be able to sing the Austrian national anthem or deconstruct Picasso's Blue Period or anything like that. Or do I?
...no, I don't. Maybe when he's done with actual college, it would be fun if he could do those things. But as far as preschool goes, if he can get through it without sticking snack foods up his nose, and if he can recite the alphabet and maybe even read a little, then I'll be the proudest mama on the block.