ok, seriously, if someone had told me when i was pregnant that there would be so much stress involved with daycare/preschool i would have been frightened to death, but much better equipped to handle things as my daughter grew from baby to toddler.who knew the horrors that are involved in wait lists, paying to be on waitlists, who you know, who you don't know, what you don't know that goes on when you aren't there, will it damage your child for life or will it not, and the other trillion worst case scenarios that go through a parents mind when deciding on any type of care/education for their child.
my daughter isn't even 2 and we had to start hunting for preschools and getting on waitlists a month ago. what the fu** is that about? i want to enjoy my baby. i don't want to be constantly fretting over where she is going to go to preschool, what type of preschool (who knew there were so many kinds) and then to top it off the cost of preschool! yes, the cost. i think i must have been living on some other planet when i thought that preschool was affordable or by a donation of some sorts. well, it's not free and to our shock, we can't afford to put our daughter in the type of preschool we would want to. how is that fair?
now don't get me wrong, we live quite happily on my hubby's salary. we don't make a lot but we are creative with our budget and we get by. does that mean that my child or someone else's child, that isn't well off, receives a better type of education as a toddler? i guess so. the preschools we can afford are not bad, they just weren't the style of school we were after.
during my research on preschools i came across the wonderful global mama. if you are a parent struggling to figure out the differences between the many types of preschools available for your toddler, check out her ongoing series on "hunting for a preschool". laura has provided us with a resource written in a language that parents can understand to help take the cloud of confusion off some of the many questions parents may have about montessori/waldorf etc. each post in the series:
"will profile a different type of school, giving you key information about the background and philosophy, curriculum, strengths and critiques, a typical “day in the life”, as well as a list of further resources."
global mama hopes to help "demystify the process of choosing a preschool". you can find her links here:
hunting for a preschool, part 2: waldorf
hunting for a preschool, part 1: montessori
hunting for a preschool, introduction
hunting for a preschool, part 1: montessori
hunting for a preschool, introduction
a big thank you to laura, for her kindness, her link love, for providing such a helpful series and for helping me clarify the blurry world of preschools. we have now decided on the type of preschool that fits our families needs and also our budget.
are any of you suffering from the same bubble bursting feeling of preschool being a fun experience for a family? i am trying to stay optimistic, yes, it's hard to tell by this post, but i want my daughter to have a wonderful preschool experience free from all the worries us adults have to deal with. what ever happened to that kind of place? was i the only one who went to a preschool like that when i was younger? i'd love to hear your thoughts.
