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Expat Momma: Missing the first day of Kindergarten in America

In every culture, mom's have certain rights-of-passage which help them link to other mothers in their community. For example, in America, a mother may laugh with her friends as they recount the day their oldest children went to Kindergarten. A new outlet for moms to connect with other moms has popped up over the last couple of years with the growing popularity of social websites like facebook, twitter, and blogs where people share their everyday moments with their following friends.

As a creature of my generation, I too am an avid watcher of my friends over the internet, especially since I am so far away from most of them. As I have been perusing facebook over the last week, I have seen a common theme as many of my American friends happened to have their first babies around the same time I did. They are sharing stories of tearful goodbyes as their oldest child climbs onto the big yellow school bus to head to their first day of Kindergarten. They are also sharing fears of their child's big day, wondering if it will set their child on the right path towards a life of education and advanced degrees. "Will they eat their snack and play nicely with the other children? And if not, are they going to drop out of school and have a life of failure?" My experience living abroad isn't exactly the same, though I do have my worries. As I am ushering my child to her first day of school in Taiwan, I'm just hoping that she can express that she needs to go to the bathroom in Chinese.

I am missing the American Kindergarten right-of-passage of motherhood. I too wish I were posting on facebook or on my blog pictures of my precocious 5 year-old posing in a yard with her new lunch box and backpack, squinting with the early morning sun in her eyes, and hoping that her Kindergarten teacher sets her on the path toward Harvard. Instead of saving for Ivy League schools, though, I am bemoaning the cost of expensive American International Schools, the closest of which is about an hour away by scooter (not the easiest mode of transportation when you have three children). Though I prefer the International School's teaching methods, I am resigning myself to the local less expensive Chinese Kindergarten which gave my child a frequent nervous "tummy ache" during a trial period last spring because of her lack of Chinese skills. And to keep up with America I am also homeschooling her English studies. Adding homeschooling to Asia's obsession with giving even Kindergartner's backpacks full of homework means I just might be stealing away her precious freeplay of childhood.

To try and console myself, I got my foreign version of the "first day of school" pictures so my child may somewhat relate to her counterparts in America. I remind myself daily that she will learn Chinese quickly enough and in the meantime is very adept at speaking the international child's language called play, though the opportunities to "speak" it are limited at her school.

Source: Third Culture Kids
Date: 6 October 2009
 

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