Kindergarten Ushers in a New Era

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

Published by the StarTribune

September 11, 1953

   WE SENT our last-born off to school the other day and it brought a pull to the heartstrings. It marked the end of an era. The eight-pounder of yesterday, whom we'd bottled and burped and diapered and powered, was a little boy now and baby days were done. Now came the first nudge toward the edge of the nest.

   His mother got out his new red corduroys and shirt on the eve of the big day and tried them on again for size. He'd grown at least an inch in two weeks, she exclaimed. The pants were too long then and now they just fit.

   WE DIDN'T have him wear the new shoes. He'd have to walk eight blocks home from school and they might hurt his feet. I shined up his old ones after he went to bed and put them outside his door.

   He was breakfasted by 8 next morning and from then until departure time he was out in front gloating over his pal, Stevie, who lives across the street and is a mite too young for kindergarten.

   "I'm going to school today, Stevie. I'll play with you after school, Stevie," he crowed.

   He was getting a measure of revenge for what the older small fry in the neighborhood had been handing him for a week. "Kindergarten? Why, that isn't really school. That's just for little kids. I'm in first grade..."

   AT LAST my wife had equipped me with the reports required to get our son into the halls of learning. They dealt with nationality, date and place of birth of himself and his forebears and what operations or illnesses he'd had and whether he owned and operated his own toothbrush or sucked his thumb.

   We shoved off then, my son exuberant and me definitely introspective. I knew things that he didn't. I knew that now he would start collecting his lumps, getting his ears flattened as the protective arm of home was loosened.

   Some situations he'd have to meet on his own. He'd be thrown with children he loved. Right away he might make lifelong friendships. And he'd also meet kids he didn't like and who didn't like him. Someone would bully him for sure--and he'd bully someone else. He'd run into dismaying circumstances, trivial to an adult but complex and monumental to one not yet quite 5. He'd have joyful new experiences--and new fears, too, fears he wouldn't mention but would sweat out alone.

THE BIGGEST penalty of parenthood is the suffering you do for little Alice or little Joe. When our oldest boy came home from third grade 11 years ago and bellowed through his tears that the teacher wouldn't let him play the drum in the school orchestra the household was swathed in gloom for a week. Then the trombone, which teacher wanted him to play instead, was issued to him and things perked up at once. The drum he'd got the previous Christmas became a neglected dust catcher.

   But parenthood has its points, too. You share in your child's little triumphs and are even prouder than he is. Isn't it wonderful! Jimmy's going to speak a piece at the Christmas program. And that horse that Hilda drew is going to be in the art exhibit!

   AS WE GOT close to Robert Fulton school, I thought about report cards. What would this tyke sitting beside me do to his home every report period--make the adult members believe pridefully that they were living with genius or cause them to suspect that the teacher just didn't understand the boy and maybe we should speak to her at P.T.A.?

   Finally we were at the classroom door and I was talking to the principal and being very folksy, recalling that I'd met her before and how nice it was to have another one for her to guide. It is never too soon to start shining the apple.

   Then I called goodby but my son already was mingling with his classmates and I was forgotten. I lingered, hoping he'd look back. He didn't and I left.

   Well, his mother would be along to get him in a couple of hours. I hoped he'd make out all right.

   He did.

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