PTA, PTSA, PTSD

“I don’t know why you are so nervous. You aren’t the one going to school tomorrow.” –S, aged 9.

This morning, while I drove to the gym, I listened to a song on my iPod by a band called Starfucker. I normally skip that song in the car because I don’t want my children to see the name of the band, even though they don’t say fuck in the song or anything like that. I was alone, though, so it didn’t matter. It was the first time I have ever driven to the gym alone on a school morning.

This week was the first day of school for both my children. My older daughter, E, began sixth grade, middle school. My younger daughter, S, started her first day of public school, after spending every school year since she was three at a Montessori school. Two kids, two first days, two new schools. I thought I had good reason to be nervous too.

Yesterday, I took each of them to meet their teachers and get a last look around before the fun began on the first day. S went to work with my husband in the morning so E and I could get a good look-see at her middle school without little sister distractions. I know E was nervous; she kept reaching for my hand and then remembering she was eleven and at school and someone might see her holding her mother’s hand. Poor baby. It’s tough when not only do you wanna hold your mama’s hand, but you are taller than her, and oh yeah, just being seen with her is embarrassing.

She had decided early in the day that she didn’t want to go to orientation with her friends, because she might get distracted and miss something she needed to know, like how to get to art class. I walked a few steps behind her like a Saudi wife, letting her set the pace for our progress through the checklist, the yearbook photo, the collecting of textbooks, the introductions to six new teachers. I was there to chime in with her last name when needed, when she couldn’t get out her own name because of nerves. That was one long hour, and we were both overwhelmed when it was through. We got in the car to pick up S and didn’t say a word to each other.

That afternoon was S’s turn at her elementary school, where E had been a student for the past two years. We stood impatiently waiting for them to unlock the front doors, general admission style, as opposed to the stockyard feel of E’s school, where we were herded into the cafeteria until they were ready for us. We jostled for position and when the doors were opened, rushed in along with all the other suburban moms and kids. We found the fourth grade class lists, and to our disappointment, we saw that S got the one class she didn’t want. Which is always the luck, really.

S and I entered her classroom and looked around, waiting for the teacher to finish talking to another family. When it was our turn, I introduced S to her, then convinced my daughter to look around while I explained to the teacher how sensitive S is, how she had been sheltered at her small private school since she outgrew diapers, how she was bullied by some of the other kids. I don’t know how needy we came across, but I am pretty sure my teary eyes gave it away. I stopped my mouth from spewing any more information all over the teacher, grabbed my folder of ten thousand forms that public school requires, and escorted my daughter around the school so she could meet her other teachers and familiarize herself with the building. I didn't want S to have the stigma of a hover mother in addition to the baggage she brought to the table herself.

On the way home, S asked me, “Mom, what is a grade?” She has never understood what a grade was, in either context. She never had a report card, so she doesn’t get the whole A through F thing. She wanted to know what happened to E. And grade levels, well, that too is meaningless to a child whose preschool class was three to six year olds and whose elementary class was six to nine year olds, depending on when their birthdays fell. There is so much she doesn’t know. Like how to check out a library book. Or how to get the bus at the end of the day. Or where to go to get a band-aid. Or how to find her classroom. She grew up sheltered, I admit, but I didn’t realize how sheltered. Just wait until she hears a kid yell shit or throw a cafeteria tray at the teacher.

And that big one, E, at middle school. She is used to nice teachers, to one classroom, to having a number called in the carpool line and a bathroom in the back of the classroom. She will have to use a real girls’ restroom, the kind from countless teenage movies. Yeah, those restrooms. She will have to deal with teachers who don’t give a crap if her pencil needs to be sharpened or if she started her period. She will have to learn how to avoid bullies and eighth graders and drugs. Chances are, by the time she finishes middle school, she will know someone who got pregnant, someone who got expelled, someone who got arrested. Is she ready for that? Am I?

Two new schools, with all the things that go along with them. It’s a lot to think about when driving all by myself to the gym, for the first time on a school morning, listening to my Starfucker song. Maybe I don’t miss diapers as much as I thought I did.