Here they come up the aisle, a sea of gowns and mortarboards, my son’s graduating class of 2019. Underneath the gowns, which are tomato-red and make them look like the world’s cutest and most problematic cosplay for The Handmaid’s Tale, are dinosaur T-shirts, ballerina dresses, and scuffed knees.
Because they’re not graduating from university, or senior school, or rehab – or any of the other things you seem to be able to graduate from these days. My son and his classmates are four-years-old. And today, in this airless church, in front of this audience of sweating parents, they are graduating from nursery.
In September all these kids will be off to ‘big school’, but for now, they still look like babies as they file haphazardly onto the stage, bumping into each other while picking their noses. The head of nursery taps the microphone and clears her throat, and the ceremony begins.
I used to disapprove of nursery graduations – before I had kids. In fact, though I think of myself as a well-meaning, liberal-leaning type, before I had kids a lot of my half-baked ideas about parenting read like ludicrous tabloid headlines.
Why Do Women Insist On Breastfeeding In Public When They Could Easily Have Fed Their Newborns Before They Came Out? That was one. I Was On A Train With Some Parents Who Were Calmly Explaining To Their Kid Why He Was In The Wrong When Obviously Any Right-Thinking Parent Would Have Given Him Hell, I dined out on that one for weeks.
Then there was Travelling On Public Transport With A Child At Rush Hour Is Tantamount To Child Abuse And I Shall Notify The Guilty Parents Of This By Tutting Almost Audibly Near Where They Are Sitting. And, of course, the perennial Oh God Why Isn’t There A Law Against Bringing A Baby On A Plane.
Nursery graduations I used to write off as an “unnecessary Americanism”, like the growing passion for “proms” in UK secondary schools. I also thought they reeked of “coddling”. Obviously I know better now. Maybe it’s having kids, or being older, but empathy, experience and critical thinking has quietened the part of my brain that was generating these thoughts.
“Too often, when you are parenting tiny children you’re either thinking about the next thing on the agenda – or reminiscing over the past.”
I now know that women breastfeed in public because babies, not being Tamagotchis, feed when they please, and breastfeeding is nothing to be ashamed of. I know that parents on trains, in being patient and respectful with their errant children, are actually doing some pretty stellar parenting. That planes and trains aren’t the sole domain of tetchy adults; they’re for everyone.
And I know that nursery graduations are a good thing.
I mean, not my son’s graduation in and of itself. It was far too hot a day for that. My toddler shouted throughout so we missed most of the ceremony because we were outside, counting bricks in the church wall (with toddlers, that goes “one, two, seven, hooray!”). None of the graduating kids remembered the special graduation song they’d been practising for weeks, or understood why they couldn’t cuddle their parents, and many of them cried. In fact, it was a lot more like The Handmaid’s Tale than you might have expected.
But celebrating children’s accomplishments isn’t coddling, it’s common sense. Those years at nursery have transformed them from podgy little babies into fully-formed, toy-sharing, bottom-wiping, shoe-tying, potato-printing little people. And, judging by the tearful reports from the nursery staff, our children have made an impact on those who care for them, too
My son has changed. He spent his first few years with his parents and our part-time nanny, and when he first started nursery at the age of three he found the structure a challenge. He would always hang back in social situations, or hide, or barricade himself into a tower of toys. Now he has a different best friend every week and shouts “ahoy-hoy!” at strangers on the bus.
Too often, when you are parenting tiny children you’re either thinking about the next thing on the agenda – your upcoming summer holidays or where you can stop for your kid to have an emergency wee – or reminiscing over the past.
It’s nice to stop and appreciate where your kid is right now. That said, if my older son chooses to go to university (or senior school, or rehab) and his younger brother creates so much of a ruckus that we have to go outside and count bricks again, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop my brain spouting more of the ludicrous tabloid headline rubbish. So be warned.