Coloring shadows

It’s that time again. Stinking Week of the Young Child. Time to celebrate our children and families and the wonderful staff at our Child Development Center. Will has probably enjoyed his last two weeks at the Center more than ever in his life—they’ve been doing great science experiments. Which thing will float? What happens if you mix this and that? But it’s that damn Week of the Young Child, and I am all pissy again every time I set foot in the door.

I find that having a child in daycare in general results a low-grade guilt, almost like a sinus infection that never quite goes away. Every time our weekly parent letter comes home thanking Kayla’s mom for donating fish to new aquarium, an overly sensitive parent (such as myself) can easily see that as a reminder that you haven’t done anything lately. Every time some little homework slips by you, it reminds you that your child is the only one at school without baby pictures that week. While certainly neglect isn’t the word that immediately comes to mind in this context, it’s not all that far off if you already wish you could leave work earlier to pick up your child. And I imagine it must be even worse if you are unfortunate enough to have a job that you need but that you don’t love—at least I want and need my work.

At the beginning of the year, we had one of those assignments—coloring shadows. Will and his classmates laid down on big sheets of drawing paper and their teachers traced the outlines of their bodies onto the paper. We were supposed to bring it home and help our child color them so the picture would represent what was important to him. Well, the CDC starts class the same day public schools opened, the same day Chris started teaching, the same day Laura started fifth grade, and I think I had registration too that week at my own school. We had enrollment papers and supply lists and placement testing information and policy manuals and syllabi scattered all over our house, and big as that shadow was, it was still pretty easy to overlook in that vast pile of papers. Then the other kids’ parents started bringing their shadows in—and just like in fifth grade, it’s easy to tell who really let their kid do the project and who did it for them. The teachers hung each one in the hall outside the classroom door, a visible reminder at drop off and pick up that we hadn’t done our homework yet. A day went by, then two, and before you know it, Let’s Get to Know You Week was over, Will’s shadow still rolled up in the mail basket in the laundry room. Finally we did color it—Will in the Incredibles t-shirt and mask he’d been wearing since his birthday earlier that year—and they hung it up in the hall however belated, but I felt we’d started the new school year off on the wrong foot. With my first child, this would’ve killed me—but with poor Will, despite feeling guilty, I couldn’t even bring myself to feel too bad about it. Will’s shadow matters, but I am trying to learn to not to punish myself more than I can help for being overwhelmed. What else could I have done?

I know I’m prickly, easily finding things to be upset or angry about, but I’m not the only person who feels this general day care guilt. The other day when I picked Will up, another mother stood in the room talking to the teacher, worrying about the flashlights we were supposed to send in with our little people the next day. I hadn’t heard about this until that afternoon myself, although somehow we were getting our final reminder, the daily sheet with Flashlight tomorrow! written on it in big black marker. The teacher told her, now don’t go out and buy one if you don’t have one at home already, and the mother said, But I don’t want her to be left out! What about when we didn’t color her shadow? And I know it sounds so melodramatic, but my heart just hurt, for her and for me, and especially for our children.

Our children learn things at daycare, wonderful things like how science works in the world, how to be a friend, how to color in the lines and how it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to. Even what it’s like to sit in a helicopter cockpit once. And they learn wonderfully practical things, like how to lay your jacket on the floor in front of you upside down so you can put both your short little arms in the sleeves, pull on the coat, and then flip it over your head. Voila! Fifteen three years old putting on their own coats, and the teachers just have to help zip up. Every step of their learning helps them grow, but it’s also a step away from you, and you can only help them, stand back to watch, and know that’s one more way they won’t need you anymore one day. But when they do need you, and you can’t be there—oh. And that’s what the Week of the Young Child becomes for me. Wednesday is Parent Lunch Day, lunch with your child at 11:45. I have class until 11:50. And then a half hour drive to get there. I can’t go, even though I chose teaching college as a profession partially because I thought my work would be more flexible and I could find ways to be participate in my children school more often than if I had a 9 to 5 job. Chris can’t go—he’s teaching himself. And so it’s another year of Will wondering why everybody else’s parents are there, except his. A special day for parents, reads the subject line of the email asking for RSVP. Yeah, really special. I don’t know. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little. I’m sure some other kids also don’t have their parents there, and every year the Center staff tries to convince me that Will won’t be left out. But I know he is. No parents at lunch. Nobody at the Grandparent High Tea. At least we can go to the Family Picnic Friday night this year.

I think a lot about that day we finally colored Will’s shadow. We spread it out on the floor, our bucket of markers beside it. Will brought in his tennis shoes so we could try to color his feet just like them. Laura and I drew the outlines of his clothes and face, and then we helped him color in the blue for his denim shorts, the red for his t-shirt, the yellow hair that’s darkened now to brown. I know how unlikely it is that he will remember that his shadow was late. I imagine that if he did remember any of this experience at all one day, it would most likely be lying down on the paper to be outlined, or maybe coloring that life-sized sheet of paper with me and Laura on the kitchen floor. Coloring shadows means the outlines are there, but you choose how to color the image. You make your image of the world, of yourself, of your family. Even though I know this, I know that like Will, I can choose to color in the lines, to ignore them, or even to crumple up the paper I am given and redraw the image myself, I also know that the world I draw is only part of my children’s lives. As soon as they walk in their classroom doors, they must learn to deal with what they find there, alone during the day, although I hope what Chris and I have taught them, unintentionally or otherwise, stays with them. I hope that Will can somehow dimly understand why we’re not at Parent Lunch Day now; I hope he forgets it later. I hope they find some better way to celebrate our children, some way that doesn’t leave our family out. I hope it won’t matter someday, either to him or to me. I know we will have many shadows to color over the years, and the picture they will make will not be overpowered by this one image. But that doesn’t change the shadow over that week for me.