THE JOY AND PAIN OF GOING TO KINDERGARTEN By Maribeth Theroux

My daughter starting school brings out my inner child

Photo by Stephen McFadden on Unsplash

My daughter is starting elementary school in the fall. I am so happy for her. It also makes my eyes well with tears just writing that. I didn’t expect to cry when my daughter received her kindergarten placement for the fall. Perhaps I could have anticipated that feelings might arise. After all, it doesn’t take much to stir them, especially when it comes to one’s children. And yet, I was wholly unprepared when the email came and the feelings knocked me over.

School was hard for me. The schoolwork part was fine, but the social dynamics? That part was hard. Painful even. The inner child in me carries that not-quite-fully-processed pain to this day. I so badly do not want my daughter to experience that same pain, or any pain, for that matter. But of course, pain is kind of inevitable in this life. We live, we laugh, we love and we cry.

I, for one, cried every day for a month when I started kindergarten. The teachers and administrators assumed it was because I did not want to be separated from my mom. A fair assumption. I’m not sure if my tears had anything to do with it, but my mom ended up getting a job in the office at my elementary school. I remember that morning so clearly. I was crying in the cubbies (as I did every morning). My teacher came over to tell me, “Your mom is going to work part time in the office. You don’t need to cry anymore.”

I stopped crying, but not really out of finding any particular solace in this new information. I think more than anything I stopped crying because it was abundantly clear that everyone needed me to stop crying. I accepted my fate. I accepted that school would be a thing I would do. Every day. For years to come.

My school years were not all bad. I forged friendships in middle school and high school that continue to this day. I found my love of theater and writing.

But then there was the time in second grade when a classmate genuinely thought I could not speak (because I so rarely spoke). And there was me worrying so much I would get nosebleeds in class that I would tip my head back ever so slightly in anxious hopes of avoiding them. There were the days I pretended to have pinkeye, so that instead of being ushered to school I would be ushered to my grandmother’s couch where I would stay beneath a blanket watching The Price Is Right and drift to sleep when the afternoon block of soap operas began.

There were entire school years when I dreaded the lunchroom. The visceral feeling of picking up the cafeteria tray and turning to face the onslaught. The noise and the faces. Did I mention the noise? What table? What will I say? What will they say back? Will they mock me for simply sitting down?

A question that didn’t occur to me then that occurs to me now: Why is this so hard for me?

And finally at just shy of 40 years old I know the answer. I’m on the autism spectrum. Social dynamics, big groups of people, lots of stimulation all day every day – these are all things that are hard for me. They make me tired. They mean I use a whole lot of my energy just to do the very basics of initiating a conversation, deciding where to sit, finally letting out an exhale when once again I get to be alone, or at least somewhere where the rules are a bit more clear.

To this day I occasionally need those recovery days of staying under a blanket and being lulled to sleep by the sounds of other people’s problems on the television.

It’s important to remember, with this and all things, that my daughter’s experience will be her own. It’s so easy as parents to project our own feelings and worries and pains onto our children. It’s so important to instead be responsive to whatever their experience is.

I hope that she will find her people. I hope that she will find her way. I hope that she will have more joy than pain. I hope that amid the often confusing and overwhelming social dynamics of school that she finds what she loves. Grows. Learns. Looks to the future and imagines a life she wants to lead.

I sometimes wonder what additional support might have helped me. But honestly? The Price Is Right and my grandmother’s couch went a long way.

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Maribeth Theroux is a poet and comedian. She recently launched The SOMA Network, an organization devoted to creating and sharing local opportunities and access to the arts. She lives in South Orange with her husband, daughter, son and two couches.