If you missed it, this headline appeared in New York Magazine last week: “Mom Sues Upper East Side Preschool for Ruining Her Daughter’s Chances at the Ivy League”. You can read the whole article by clicking here. But the gist of it is that a woman is claiming that “getting a child into the Ivy League starts in nursery school” and York Avenue Preschool was not spending enough time preparing her daughter for “the ERB, an admissions exam required by almost all elite private elementary schools”. Instead, the children were using the class as (*GASP*) “one big playroom”.
I know what you’re thinking— “That was so last week!” Well. You should know that I didn’t want to just relay the news. I wanted to add to the conversation. So I took the past few days to do a very involved research study in order to get a better understanding of what exactly can happen to two children starting their educational careers on opposing paths.
I have quantified and qualified and in the end, I have boiled it down to one super specific chart. I must say, the results are far more disparate than anybody imagined. BEHOLD.
Scary stuff, y’all. Even scarier now that I’m a New Yorker saying “y’all”. The truth is, I am two months away from being told I should have started my preschool search two months ago. Mazzy is in trouble. Impressing the elite is NOT MY THING.
Totally. That’s what I figured, y’all! 🙂
Good luck on your preschool search. Make sure it is a good one that you choose so she doesn’t end up in prison for her adult life.
The good news is that it never goes away, this stress. My kids go to a Jewish day school for a host of reasons. One of them is that I have no faith in the public school that they would otherwise attend.
So every year I kill myself trying to keep them in school so that I don’t have to worry about them falling behind.
And so the big rat chases the cheese for fear of failing his children. Something has to change.
Ha ha! One of the daycares around me just got caught with a meth lab in their basement. That’s the kind of education you get in Missouri. I mean, we are the #1 producer of the shit. So, I guess it only makes sense. Apparently the only thing we know is subpar. Hell, the world needs ditch diggers too, right??
I wouldn’t worry too much about Mazzy falling into a life of crime. She is obviously a baby genius – saying words like avocado and knapsack.
I so want JDaniel to save his little part of the world!
I appreciate your well-designed flowchart. I’ve been watching the struggles of friends in Boston to get their kids into good preschools (which close at 3pm?! And cost a small fortune?!) and admit to questioning whether Anna’s current place is up to snuff. Right now I’m going by this: she’s happy, she counts to 30, and so far only one kid has hit her in the face with a toy train.
That DOES sound like “good news”! Rats are adorable!
Meth lab in the basement?! That is a whole other level of subpar.
Hopefully, my genius baby doesn’t pull a Snuffaluffagus throughout the interview process.
Haa…priceless. I love the “gets hit in head by swinging door”…
I always thought the whole preschool debacle was reserved for NYC folks. Turns out almost everyone is subjected to the same kind of ridiculousness.
As far as Anna’s preschool, I would say as long as it’s not in Missouri (see above comment) you are probably ok.
I liked it a lot. I think under good pre-school there should have been a nod to late life parental care with a section “puts you in a really good home where they wipe your spittle away with an hermes spittlechief”.
Love the chart. I’m about to begin the search for a preschool since we are moving this week. Don’t even know where to start!
Ah one of the few perks of living in suburban NJ….she’s going to the preschool around the block.
My expectations of our preschool: keep the children from being captured. Exist one block from my house. Know my child’s name. And now: no meth lab.
Your chart is hilarious!
I have my 3 y/o signed up for preschool for next year. My 4 y/o…we are talking to schools and trying to figure out what to do. But, that’s a special needs issue, not b/c I think he’ll end up in prison. 😉
Funny! I actually decided not to read your post yesterday because it was going to make me too anxious about my baby’s speech development and the possible implications of that for preschool interviews next fall. I swear, I didn’t start motherhood crazy!
Honestly, I debated posting the speech thing yesterday because I know Mazzy is a very early talker. Most of Mazzy’s friends (peers?) aren’t saying much. And boys talk later than girls. I wouldn’t stress over it.
I debated putting a nod to parental care like “showers parents with money and cars” but left it off. In hindsight, it would have worked really nicely compared to “Bankrupts parents with requests for bail money and lawyer fees”.
Hmmmm…. I could still change it.
I’ve heard about these magical school in New Jersey… dare I, consider it????
My sister has told me that it is the same in Los Angeles. She keeps asking me if I have started looking yet for S (almost 15 months old).
Also, this is a great article that this mom needs to read: http://www.slate.com/id/2288402/ If I were the preschool I would be quoting this research as a defense for why they weren’t prepping the child for that entrance exam.
I loved my daycare. Truly did.
They didn’t pretend they were going to teach my 6 month old Chinese, which was a big selling point for me. The not pretending part.
Don’t even get me started on the preschool ridiculousness. That law suit – suck up some responsibility as a parent, why don’t you?
The right school is great, but I feel it is a parent’s job to challenge their child because no one knows how their brains work like they do – something you’re doing a great job on with Mazzy.
I’ll let everyone write my poor non-elite preschool dwelling children off as “ruined” while they plot world domination.
LOVE the chart.
Miss Missouri kinda changed everything, didn’t she?
I bet that’s even more complicated. Good luck!
Here’s what I looked for in a preschool: a bright, happy room with lots of art and a good playground. I guess this means my children won’t be going to university.
On the upside: no college tuition!
Great chart! We’ve managed the preschool thing, but now have to worry about the right kindergarten. It just never ends, all the ways we can ruin our kids.
been preschool shopping for my son…
i loove your chart… hilarious…
the article… somewhat sad… good thing i don’t live in NY…
You, my friend, are the Dave Barry of the mother set!
And I totally agree with Dana. I already told my kids, be smart enough to get scholarships or dumb enough to not get accepted in the first place. Or that is what I would tell them, if I wasn’t so busy letting them – you know – play. Which that mother should be doing, if she really was worried about Ivy League, as there are a multitude of studies re: how play is very important for children’s brain development. Mind you the studies were written by kids whose parents never let them play, so what does that tell ya? 😉
thank god i live where ‘average’ is totally acceptable. (LOVED your coffee / wine tweet today. holy cow)
See, this is how it all falls apart. At first, you think, “I just want a school where she can be happy! All kids this age need is play, anyway! Blah blah SOCIALIZATION blah blah DEVELOP INDEPENDENCE blah blah LEARN TO SIT AND LISTEN OUTSIDE DOMICILE.”
But then.THEN.One of the other kids in the class starts reading and all hell breaks loose. Why is THAT kid reading? He’s scrawny and born two months earlier and prone to gas after snack. What is the teacher NOT doing that is undoing at-home efforts to achieve full literacy by four? WHAT KIND OF CRAP PRESCHOOL IS THIS ANYWAY? Cue selling of mom cushy car to finance non-crap preschool payments.
It’s a slippery slope, my friend. A gassy-early-reader-littered slope.
I realize that everyone is going to be jealous of Missouri’s preschool system after my comment. Making drugs is an important aspect of every childhood… it only produces well-rounded children (if they survive the random meth lab explosions and chemical exposures).
That’s one of the greatest charts I’ve ever seen
This article adds an interesting perspective to the preschool conundrum http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/01/how_important_is_preschool_if_you_are_researching_early_education_philosophies.html
Thanks, Kate – your little epiphany just ruined my Thursday. My 3-year-old is prone to gas with no mitigating intellectual advantages, and doesn’t even have the decency to be embarrassed by it. In fact, he announces proudly, like Jim Carey in Liar Liar, “It was me!” On the bright side, he counts… but he skips 7. I think it’s personal. He’s harboring a grudge against 7. My mortal fear is that the omission of “7” from his vocabulary will be career-limiting. We’re at the top of that slippery slope you describe, and it’s a long way down.