1.1 - Alexandra’s Pre-School Experience

It all began with Alexandra.

Maria was a stay-at-home mom and I was a self-employed instructional designer writing training programs for several large companies in the Bay Area. Maria just had Cameron and needed a little respite from our darling Alexandra.

We picked a pre-school about two miles from our house and figured Alexandra could go a few days a week—just enough time for Maria to regain her sanity.

For the first month or so, it seemed like a perfect plan. Alexandra was enjoying being around other little kids, and due to necessity, potty-training followed quickly behind. Alexandra, with her cute, short bob-cut and relatively shy demeanor (at least around other kids), seemed to be hitting her stride.

Then one day, Alexandra shared with me that the other little girls thought she looked like a boy with her short bob-cut and that her shoes were ugly. Now, Maria and I were not prepared for this kind of cattiness at such an early age—high school, maybe, but pre-school? Give me a break.

We started saying those typical parental phrases, like, “Well, just ignore them,” and “They’re just jealous,” and “Obviously, you don’t need friends like those.” Well-meaning, yes, but did it solve the problem? Not exactly.

This went on for about a year. It wasn’t all bad, mind you, but with kindergarten just around the corner, Maria and I started getting concerned—translation, panic. If pre-school could intimidate my daughter, just imagine what the public schools were gonna do? With her shyness, we were afraid the other kids would eat her alive—maybe a wee bit over-protective looking back on it, but whatever the rationale, we were convinced we had to do something fast!

We pulled out the phonebook and started looking for private schools.