At a department meeting the other day, the topic turned to kindergarten. My son just started, and much to my surprise, he is enjoying it immensely. As I was expressing my delight, someone asked me what I thought of all-day kindergarten. As anyone who has read this blog before already knows, I am rather opinionated; I jumped up on my soapbox to expound upon the evils of this idea. I was quickly reminded, however, that I work in a university because several people stepped up to provide a different perspective.

Unlike most people who deign to disagree with me, my colleagues in academia usually tend to be very diplomatic and polite in debate. This occasion was no different. So instead of feeling attacked and belittled, I was intrigued. So intrigued, in fact, that I have let the discussion ramble around in my head for a while before trying to write about it. It’s complicated, and I had never really considered the opposing view much before now. Here is what my colleagues brought up:

1. Many children need the structure a kindergarten classroom provides, and the more the better.
2. Many parents cannot keep up with the needs and demands of a kindergartener all day long.
3. Half-day kindergarten creates scheduling havoc for working parents.
4. Most other states provide full-day kindergarten, so Indiana’s children are falling behind the rest of the nation.

After several days’ consideration, I’ve decided to modify my stance. I would like to see free all-day kindergarten as an option for public school students. (It is an option in some places, but it costs parents money.) I am still opposed to mandatory all-day kindergarten, though, and here is why.

1. Yes, some children need more structure. Some are holy terrors at home, but they tend to calm down in a classroom setting. Other children, however, thrive in less structured environments. My son is very bright, independent and creative. At home I have given him as much freedom as possible with as many opportunities and tools for learning as I can provide without making him sit down and do structured activities on a strict schedule. I believe that part of the reason he is now enjoying school so much is that he enjoys a little structure as a change of pace, but I fear that when he goes to first grade, the full day will squelch his active imagination. Full-day kindergarten may be right for some kids, but they are still only five or six years old. If they can be free, let them be free a while longer.
2. Yes, some parents have a hard time keeping up with a kindergartener. They are demanding little critters. But the parents are the ones who decided to have children, not the state government or the taxpayers. Why should the state foot the bill for all-day kindergarten just because some parents are too tired to run after their kid anymore? And what makes people think that a teacher with 25 of the active little darlings is going to be able to deal with them better than their parents?
3. Half-day kindergarten is a scheduling nightmare for working parents. It’s also a scheduling nightmare for stay-at-home parents and for parents who work part-time. But public school is supposed to be more than state-sponsored daycare, and I think it’s more important to consider the needs of the child than the schedules of the adults. The hassle of arranging for childcare should be the last concern of parents trying to decide whether to put their child in part-time or full-time kindergarten.
4. Finally, there is the issue of Indiana’s falling behind the states that are offering free full-day kindergarten. Now, I’ve never been one to do something just because everyone else is doing it, but I’ve also never been one to tout Indiana’s educational system as superior. If other states are offering all-day kindergarten, good for them. I don’t think Indiana should just assume that we need to do it just because everyone else is, though. This state is falling behind educationally for a lot of reasons, and we must use our limited funds to address the most pressing of those reasons. Kindergarten is important, but I’d like to see some studies that indicate full-day kindergarten students end up with higher GPA’s in high school or that they are more likely to graduate or go to college or something concrete like that. Don’t just tell me that everybody else is doing it. Tell me why it is good that everybody else is doing it.

Here’s my last point, and then I will shut up. Say we do add four more hours to the school day. What exactly will we be adding? If you have children for the entire day, you have to feed them. You’re down to three and a half hours. Hopefully, they’ll add some physical playtime, preferably outside since this state is already struggling with overweight kids. Now we’re down to two and a half or three hours. I don’t know many five- or six-year-olds who can sit still and concentrate for more than about half an hour at a time, so you will have to incorporate some other unstructured, free time. Now you’re down to about two hours. For little children in school for the first time, eight hours is a lot of time away from parents just for a couple extra hours of instruction.

So despite the thoughtful comments of my colleagues, I’m not on the all-day kindergarten bandwagon yet. It would be a nice option for some kids, but it really is already. People just don’t want to pay for it. I’d still hate to see it mandatory. Let our kids be kids for just a little longer.

I have always loved the first day of school - meeting your new teachers, seeing your classmates, buying new textbooks, pencils and notebooks. There is so much promise and opportunity in the air, you can actually smell it, like newness in a car. There is the promise of learning wonderful new things, the opportunity to make new friends or even to become someone new yourself.

When I was a kid, I would spend the whole summer planning my new persona for fall. On vacations, I would specifically look for and purchase souvenirs that would help me create this exciting and totally different Jennifer – wild-child earrings, hippie bandanas, preppy polo shirts. Many hours would be spent in deciding exactly what clothes and accessories would be worn on that first day, how my hair would be done, which perfume would be spritzed.

My son started kindergarten last week, and when I wasn’t being either a sentimental slob or an anxious basket-case, I was reveling in the first-day atmosphere. Even the five- and six-year-old kids could feel it. They strutted around their classrooms, sporting their new haircuts and backpacks, chattering happily about their teachers and getting to know one another.

Yesterday was our first day back at the university, and the feeling was the same, just with older faces and different props. Eighteen-, nineteen-year-olds, even twenty- and thirty-somethings were loudly talking on their cell phones or self-consciously playing with their new MP3 players as they waited in line to buy books. A former student stopped me to say hello, and I barely recognized him with his dark tan, wild new hairstyle, and recent nose piercing. Nose piercing may not be my thing, but I could certainly relate to why he was adopting his new look - first-day-of-school excitement.

Even students who don’t like school generally get into the spirit. Think about it. How often did you ever hear people sincerely gripe and whine about school on the first day? Sure, some of the tough guys would complain, but it always felt like they were just going through the motions. They too were pretty excited about seeing their buddies again and getting out of the summer doldrums.

Teachers aren’t immune either, though you might think we would be after years and years of school. We get a kind of high out of those first days, even with the chaos of preparing syllabi, juggling administrative paperwork, and making copies. Most of us love our subjects, and we’re happy to come back to share them with our students. Plus, it’s fascinating to see who will end up in our classrooms and how the dynamics will fall out.

Of course, after a few weeks, the newness starts to wear off like new car smell does. After a while, you start to take it for granted. It becomes routine. All the promise turns into work, and the opportunities turn into deadlines. School is hard. How many days until winter break?

Older people tell me to savor this time in my life when my children are small. “It’s the best time of your life,” they tell me. I believe them in a way. After all, these are people who have lived a lot longer than I have. They’ve raised children of their own, and they have a perspective that I do not. So I have to trust them. And I want to heed their advice, really I do. Most of the time, though, I just don’t have the time or the energy to enjoy things the way I am supposed to.

Like all moms, I have those amazing, wonderful moments with my kids. The moment when my baby girl, smiling all over with pride, takes four steps from the couch to my arms. The moment when my kindergartner gives me a big hug and says, “I love you, Mommy.” Those very rare moments when an adult says, “Wow, you’re a good mom.” The tough thing is that these moments all add up to about 90 seconds out of my day.

The other 23 hours, 58 minutes and 30 seconds are filled with meals to be made, messes to be cleaned, errands to be run, diapers to be changed, complaints to be resolved, demands to be met, dangers to be averted, boo-boos and illnesses to be dealt with, arguments to be mediated, chores to be completed, bills to be paid. That doesn’t allow for much time to relish the joys of motherhood and marriage.

Instead, my mind wanders back to a time when it was just me and my husband, when Saturday night meant takeout Chinese food, a bottle of wine, a rented movie and sex. I sometimes envy my parents and their friends, retired but still young and healthy. Their kids are grown; they enjoy their grandkids an afternoon or two a week. They spend most of their time, though, puttering around the house, visiting with friends, playing golf or tennis or cards, going on vacations. If this is the time of my life, why do they look so much happier, more relaxed and better rested?

I’m starting to believe it’s a generational conspiracy, perpetrated to guarantee the continuation of the species. Old people tell their kids how great parenthood is so they will provide grandchildren. Come to think of it, it’s also a pretty good way for our parents to get even with us for how rotten we were to them!

So for most parents, most days are mostly hard and exhausting and frustrating and stressful. Just try to hang onto those sweet moments, and remember, you’re having the time of your life!

As I’ve whined before, I’m a liberal in a red state. Most of the time, I keep my mouth shut during political discussions. Occasionally, however, I’ll hear something that blows my circuits, and I’ll make the mistake of letting my liberal viewpoint be known. I am then jumped from all sides. Since I am not adept at oral debate, I get tongue-tied and embarrassed, and my friends and family get the satisfaction of “winning” these disagreements.

I’m used to it.

What really honks me off, though, is when people blame my liberal views on my youth, my inexperience or my job. They tell me that I’ll get over it, as if I’m a six-year-old who just skinned her knee or got crushed by the boy next door. They tell me I’ll learn to be a conservative as I get older, see more of the world, and get away from university vacuum in which I work.

That’s funny because when I was younger, I was conservative. I’ve actually gotten more liberal as I’ve gotten older. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, hating Jimmy Carter and loving Ronald Reagan. Carter was responsible for the high gas prices that so upset my father. Carter’s ineptitude prolonged the hostage crisis in Iran that gave my mother nightmares. Reagan was the hero. When he was shot, I sent him a get-well card and framed the reply I received from the White House. I remained a Republican through my undergraduate years at a liberal college campus; in the first election in which I could vote, I voted for George Bush over Clinton.

It wasn’t until I was older that I came to consider myself a liberal. I was working two jobs and fighting to make ends meet, watching gay friends struggle with AIDS, studying the Bible and thinking about starting a family. All of a sudden, the Republican Party seemed very out-of-touch with all the things I was going through, all the things I was really worried about.

As far as inexperience goes, I admit that I have fewer experiences than my parents, aunts, uncles, and 60-year-old friends and relatives. How could it be otherwise? They have 2 or 3 decades on me. But here are some experiences I’ve had that I don’t think they have: I’ve cleaned the blood off a friend’s face after he was ambushed and beaten up just for being gay. I’ve helped a friend struggle with the painful decision of abortion because the condom broke and she had no money or insurance, and she knew her parents would never consent to adoption. I’ve watched a hemophiliac friend die very slowly of AIDS because Ronald Reagan refused to act to protect the national blood supply. I’ve been told by security personnel in an overseas airport not to speak English or mention that I am American because our foreign policy has alienated just about every other nation on the planet.

Actually, when people say that I have less “experience” than they do, I think they really mean “money.” Many folks tell me that when they were young (and poor), they used to be Democrats, even campaigning for John or Bobby Kennedy. As they got older and gained more experience (and money), they switched sides. I’ve always said that conservatism is the philosophy of the haves trying to keep their stuff from the have-nots. Most of the time, you accumulate more stuff as you get older; when you have more stuff to protect, conservatism probably seems more appealing.

Finally, there is the issue of my job. I teach English at a large urban university. As colleges go, it is relatively conservative. It is a predominately commuter school in the middle of a very red state, so about 80% of my students are Republican, and the faculty’s probably split about 50/50. The word “university,” however, is anathema to most conservatives. For many years now, the Republican Party has been painting college students, professors and intellectuals in general as the enemy, and it terrifies me. If you know history, current conservative rhetoric about universities and academics should worry you too.

Totalitarian regimes have a long history of coming down hard on colleges. Guess what Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Iran’s current president all have in common? One of the first things they did in their rise to power was to purge their respective nations of all the intellectuals. They exiled or assassinated college professors, leaders of university think tanks, student activists, scientists, teachers, and writers. During China’s “Cultural Revolution,” Chairman Mao sent thousands of scholars to their deaths to keep them from criticizing his horrific campaign. So when well-meaning folks tell me not to be taken in by the “intellectual elite” I work with, I have to suppress a shudder.

People also seem to forget that I’ve been teaching for only five years. I worked for the Disney Company for 10 years, and I worked for a financial services company for 6 years. Talk about a vacuum! In that company, I was completely surrounded by far-right conservatives who “never roved beyond the narrow limits of (their) money-changing hole.” (Dickens, A Christmas Carol) At least in the university, we have the courtesy to look at both sides of an issue. In private industry, they never feel the need to look past the bottom line.

Anyway, as long as I live in a red state and most of my friends are Republican, I guess I’ll just have to keep nodding and smiling. Should I forget my place and speak my mind, I’m sure everyone will remind me that I’ll grow up eventually and get over my silly liberal ways. It could happen. Especially if I ever get rich and forget my values.

I have a microwave, a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, and an automatic ice maker in my kitchen. I have multiple PC’s wirelessly networked to store my to do lists, grocery lists, recipes and calendars. I have an automatic washer and dryer and a Kirby vacuum cleaner with HEPA filters. I have a van to help me cart my children around. When my grandmother was raising her three kids, she didn’t have any of these wonderful conveniences. So many wonders have been invented to make a homemaker’s life easier.

Why does it feel so much harder?

I look back at pictures, movies, TV shows from the 1950’s, and things look so rosy - even in black and white. Donna Reed’s house was so clean; June Cleaver’s kids were so polite and well-behaved. The families look so calm and content and healthy. Even when I talk to my parents and their friends, the memories they share with me are of spotless homes, delicious 3-course dinners every night, moms in starched dresses and pearls, dads working 40-hour weeks.

If I get the house dusted before a party, I feel pretty productive.

You’d think with all the time-saving inventions we have today, my house would be immaculate, I’d be dishing gourmet cuisine, dressed in evening gowns while my husband served up martinis at 4:30. What’s going on?

Well, for one thing, we’ve got so much more stuff to deal with. My grandparents had one small closet that held all their clothes for both of them. My husband and I have a walk-in closet bursting at the seams. It takes me days to get through all the laundry.

For another thing, the expectations are so much higher for parents these days. In the 50’s, parents could just toss the kids outside and let them play stickball in the vacant lot. Our kids are supposed to be reading, writing and doing math in kindergarten. We have to give them structure, get them in French lessons, hire tutors and read to them constantly. They have summer homework. Plus, we cannot just send our kids out to play without every other parent in the neighborhood wondering why on earth we’re not supervising our children and keeping them safe from the child molesters and myriad other dangers that lurk beyond the safety of our homes.

And you know what? I have a feeling that things weren’t quite as idyllic in the old days as many people try to make us think. When my parents, in-laws and their friends aren’t consciously trying to compare today’s world unfavorably to the world of the 50’s, they often remember things a little differently: mothers knocked around by drunken fathers, children belittled by chauvinistic fathers and demanding mothers. And so many of the people who grew up in the 50’s are now overweight and diabetic, I can’t help but think that all those 3-course meals finally caught up with them.

So I’ll try to give myself a break when I let my son watch two full hours of cartoons during my daughter’s nap so that I can get some laundry done. And if we have to order pizza for dinner because I’m too tired to cook after work, I’ll have to forgive myself. I’m just no Donna Reed. These days, who is?