Why saying goodbye to kids doesn’t get easier
Saying goodbye to my children at school, child care and summer camp (today’s experience) doesn’t get easier over the years. They’re seven but it doesn’t feel seven times easier.
Just when I think that we (me and them) have matured enough to take a new beginning in our stride, I get caught short with first day jitters, anxiety, sadness and guilt.
Today was the first day of camp. It started badly and I felt like I made a bad mistake. Oops, bad mistakes. Plural. Many. Multiple.
- guilt-out one: I enrolled my boys in the wrong camp! Turns out there are two camps in the same school and my boys’ friend was in the other.
- guilt-out two: My boys (seven year old twins) love arts and crafts but they were the only boys other than another boy who seemed to have a serious behavioral problem. They both like girls, but a few more boys would’ve encouraged this interest in art to last a big longer …
- guilt-out three: I promised to stay until they gave me the nod. But the nod didn’t really come so I said goodbye and left after sitting there for an hour. They were on the verge of tears. So was I. So am I. Still.
Maybe it was first day jitters for them, for me and for the center. I hope so.
Because we have a record of bad first days.
When my fellow blogger, Renee (another working mom and a great marketer) asked how to go about choosing a child care provider, bad memories woke me up in the middle of the night.
I started remembering how rough starting child care can be on mother and child.
The day my two year old twins started childcare was harrowing.
The center promoted regular field trips for toddlers as an attraction, which only filled me with alarm and skepticism (they’re two! Going to child care is a field trip in its own right, I grumbled to anyone who’d listen.).
Their first full day was a sizzler. It was 90 degrees with full Washington DC humidity, and it coincided with a field trip.
After pushing the double stroller down the hill to center, we arrived to find the bus idling and belching smoke in the middle of the flat top, the bitumen play area. Babies were crying and hassled teachers were trying to corral the 12 toddlers on the bus.
My plan had been to deposit them on the bus, and make a run for home and a few hours of work.
But as I mounted the bus’ steps to put them in their seats, my two boys started crying. Then screaming, then bellowing, “No, no, no, NO, NO” before getting truly hysterical, egging each other on.
They were driping and red in the heat, and so was I.
No one would help me; the teachers and a few parent volunteers were too preoccupied with getting the other kids in their seats and still the bus idled, adding to the nightmare of noise, heat and smoke.
The time came for the bus to depart, and my kids wouldn’t budge. They refused to mount the steps or let go of me. The bus driver was of no use.
“You’ve got to get on the bus or off. You can’t stay there,” he yelled as he revved the engine.
kids with cousin, jan 2009
Finally, I had no choice but to take them home.
Still the boys refused to let go of me.
They were so hysterical they refused to do anything other than cling to me.
With a child on each hip, tears streaming down my face, hair plastered with sweat, I pushed the stroller back up the hill in the heat with my belly (gee, that pregnancy fat I was still carrying finally had a benefit!) while the the boys continued to wail in my arms.
We made it home, dripping with sweat. I was sure we’d been gone for hours.
It was only 9 a.m. We were exhausted. After a cold drink, the three of us lay down on the big bed together, and slept for hours.
I still cry to think of that morning.
I’d like to say it got easier. But over the years, there have been other mornings like today where my children refused to go gently or easily into the child care center or school or camp or someone’s house.
I know tomorrow will be better. And that they will probably love it.
But there are days when my rising second graders would much prefer to stay home with me. I know just how they feel. I wish they were here this minute.
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Filed Under: Managing Your Career • Moms Returning to Work • Working Moms Resources
About the Author: Julie Power is a writer and editor with experience in both the United States and Australia. After living in the United States for 16 years, she recently returned to live in Sydney with her husband and twin boys (9 years old).
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Oh, Julie, Julie, Julie, what can I say?
I know that when I was 7, I was already anxious to GET AWAY from my mother. What about you?
Thanks for sharing your stories with us.
I don’t remember wanting to get away at all. Nor do I remember being farmed out for days, at childcare or camp, the way children do today. I do remember being told to go and play in the yard, and staying there for whole days. Update, turns out kids love the camp, and have gone off happily every morning. Hooray. thanks for your comment.