The Art of Letting Go — Getting Ready to Send Our Kid Off to School

Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash

This September my husband and I prepare to send our daughter off to preschool.

We had initially had her signed up for PreK3 this year, but with the pandemic raging, we opted to keep her home, because we knew we wanted to try to get pregnant and also didn’t want to limit her interactions with her grandparents.

So pandemic or not, this September she’s headed to Prek4 for an adventure of learning and play to help lay the foundation for her educational career going forward.

So here we are, gearing up to send our firstborn child off into the world for the first time without us and it has me full of mixed emotions.

First, how in the world did time move so fast that we’re already starting her educational career? I can still feel the cold operating room and remember watching her being lifted over the curtain during the emergency c-section and now she’s a thriving young preschooler.

Time just moves too quickly — no matter how much we intentionally stop to smell the roses, time is a currency we don’t have the luxury of purchasing more of.

My husband and I will be partially distracted this fall since we’ll be welcoming our second child toward the end of summer — so perhaps that nostalgia won’t sting as much in September. Or maybe it will since my hormones will surely be raging in a postpartum state.

Second, this is a weird thought and what I’ve been thinking about — but it’s so odd to me that we literally trust strangers with our kids. I’m not trying to be one of those crazy overprotective parents, but the thought hit me one day.

We never gave that a second thought when we were kids. We went to school. That was our job. It’s something that every single one of us does, without question. Yet, now, as a parent, it’s such an odd concept to me.

I remember saying that to my mom and asking her, “When I started school — were you worried, like you literally give me away for the day to some strangers that you’ve never met.”

“And now you know how it feels and why we would ask you so many questions about your day,” she replied.

Payback.