“The Mystery of the Giddy Mothers, Strollers and Toddlers”
Dear Bank of Prairie Village Community~
The Back-to-School mindset can be bittersweet. Suddenly, traffic patterns change as I remind myself to avoid streets in front of schools where carpools form both before and after school.
Nevertheless, back-to-school for many means getting back into blessed school year routines. This point was underscored recently as I visited a local Starbucks. This Starbucks has a blackboard. Each week they ask a new question.
This particular week was “What do you like best about Back-to-School?”
I took the time to examine the blackboard in detail. Clearly, this week’s answers were an “intergenerational” effort.
Scrawled on the blackboard in clearly young children’s handwriting were the usual ~ “New friends! Old Friends! New Crayons! Recess! Bigger Desks! Lunch Breaks! Snacks! My New Teacher!” I agreed with all the children’s assessments.
However, ~ I did take a long look at one entry (which was written slightly more legibly than the others stating the best part of back-to-school was “Math, Math and more Math!” I decided this had to have been the class prodigy.
The more I looked at the blackboard, I noted in very visible, bold and legible handwriting, what I decided were “maternal” comments. Specifically, “Getting Back into My School Routine! Organization Again! Reasonable Bedtimes! The Joy of After Dinner Homework! and my favorite “Four hours of Blissful Peace and Sanity.”
Although I am not a licensed detective, I felt very confident deducing these last comments were written by frazzled mothers who had exhausted themselves coming up with ever new activities for their rambunctious little ones toward the end of the “Summer Vacation.”
I left the blackboard and coffee shop pleased the frazzled mothers had made it through another Summer Break.
That said, there is another, more subtle aspect to “Back-to-School” I have just started to recognize.
Shortly after the local grade schools went back into session, I noticed what seemed like a sharp increase in young mothers out with strollers~ all with toddlers in tow. I first noticed this phenomenon when making a rare mid-morning trip to the Prairie Village shopping center.
For the most part the mothers all seemed relaxed, if not plain giddy about strolling around with their toddlers.
I thought this odd, given the hustle and bustle associated with the “Back-to- School” Season. From the coffee shop, to the grocery store to the French Market, every where I looked were happy young mothers and little toddlers. I wondered if this giddy mother/toddler strolling was a standard mid-morning ritual I had long overlooked or something new associated with the “Back to School Season?”
The more I thought about it, I constructed a whole theorem.
For good or for bad, I am my parents’ oldest child. Born the first to two parents who were both “unspoiled only children themselves” I quite rightly received a great deal of attention when I first entered the world. For twelve happy months, I received their full, undivided and constant attention.
Unfortunately, my little brother came along barely a year later, and my parents’ attention was suddenly divided in two. (However, as the eldest, I still felt responsible ~ perhaps because when we got into trouble, I was the one who had to explain what we were doing.)
By age four, having just adjusted to my role as the eldest of two boys, my sister came along. Suddenly my folks started dividing their attention across the three of us~ (although I always thought my folks were partial to my little brother and sister~ at least in terms of discipline.)
My first day of kindergarten was a big day at our house, complete with new clothes, pictures, sobbing and one of my best temper tantrums. I was hysterical as I watched my smiling little brother and sister drive off with Mom waving from the big station wagon. For me left behind, the kindergarten building I stared at before me looked like an enormous prison.
Suddenly the trip down memory lane reliving my first kindergarten day trauma, merged with an understanding of what I was seeing in the Prairie Village Shopping Center some 60 years later.
What I did not realize on that August day in 1965 was with me off to kindergarten, Mom had one less walking child to divide her attention ~at least for four hours~ the standard half day kindergarten back then.
I am sure Mom, with my little brother and sister in tow, went straight to the shopping center, pleased if not giddy she had only two little ones to worry about in the grocery store instead of three. I am sure my little rother and sister loved the newfound attention Mom could give each, without her having to constantly search for big brother, Danny, (always wandering off in search of mischief~ or at least the candy and toy section.)
Suddenly I understood all the giddy mothers, strollers and toddlers during the back-to-school season. The mothers are happy, if not giddy, they can now give their remaining at home little ones more full attention while big brother and/or sister are off at school.
The toddlers are giddy with their mother’s newfound undivided attention and new shopping adventures. The rush to get the older children off to school provides a chance for renewed and more personal maternal bonding with those still at home.
I was most pleased with myself for uncovering “the mystery of the giddy mothers, strollers and happy toddlers” ~ and trying to decide if my tantrum on that first kindergarten day was really as bad as I remember. (I am pretty sure, it was.)
Yours in the “giddy joys” of back- to-school ~and the cool breezes and brilliant leaves of the coming autumn season!
