The Prison of Preschool
by Juliet Johnson
At preschool today, they are making magic mirrors. Four-year old Nathan is having none of this activity stuff.
The bead table is one of three tables inside the little stone building that has sucked my son's babyhood right from me like a high-powered vacuum. Well, not all of his babyhood. He's still enjoying anxiety and fear.
He looks at me with big eyes. "I want you stay, Mommy."
"I know you do, but I have to go."
The panic in his eyes starts to swell.
"Stay 'til I do all the tables. Just 'til I do all the tables."
Two year-old Emma is squiggling at my hip. She wants DOWN. She wants to go to school NOW. She would trample Nathan to get to those tables.
I make a glue circle on the magic mirror. Glue, normally the ultimate glory to have in his hands apart from real scissors, and he's not interested. He's staring at the giant fear cloud that is forming around him. Making him impenetrable by teachers and other tiny people.
Emma has wriggled down and is making her own magic mirror, having stolen it from another kid, and wields the glue and glitter bowl like a pastry chef.
I kneel down and help Nathan pick out beads, talking about everything in an upbeat way like the books say, trying not to look at him too deeply; but he stares at me like he's facing a firing squad. He's disintegrating.
The happy sound of kids playing turns into a wave of sickening background noise. The trees and park setting around his little preschool have turned into a ghastly knoll. Nathan grows silent and begins to suck all the air and the space from between us until he is actually under the skin of my leg and winding up me like a third artery.
Nathan's vision has gone. The room is black. The teacher leans to talk to him but her voice has become an evil, hoarse sputter.
He's glued one bead onto his mirror, by accident. One hand clutches my pink dress. I gently try to loosen the grip, getting down to his level, catching one of his petrified eyes with mine.
I can't get Nathan's fist off my dress. "Mommy. I don't want you to go." He's full-out crying now. His face is sweaty, and terrified.
We've been coming here for six weeks in the summer to get used to preschool for the fall, so the transition will be easier. The fall is two weeks away, and it's not getting easier.
"I need a hug. Mommy. ONE HUG, Mommy. Let me kiss you," he holds up his arms, frail as a drying starfish. His tears on my face, his hot little lips, all the blood goes to his lips when he cries. I HATE PRESCHOOL, I think. THIS IS BARBARIC.
I haul Emma to my hip, certain now that he'll hate me for taking Emma from this hell but leaving him, like Sophie's Choice.
"I'll be back! I love you, honey!" I look back at him, corralled by the teacher, wrestling with her; he's red, crying on everything, holding his arms up, eyes full of fear.
I leave out the front door. Everything looks white. The air has gotten wider. Why did I pay for this school? Why can't he just stay home and grow old and uneducated in my attic? That feeling of leaving someone who doesn't want to be left, it's cruel. Doing it twice, three times a week. It's killing me, the walking away.
Later, we pick him up at school. He's in the swarm of kids running outside from tree to tree. He doesn't see us. He looks up at his teacher the way the other kids look up at the teacher. He's happy. There is hope.
He sees us. He leaps over and climbs into my arms and wraps his legs around me. He buries his head on my shoulder. So happy, he has no words. I'm a tree, and he's my moss.
We walk to the car with his magic mirror.
"How was school? Did you have fun?"
"Yes. I made Jared a friend."
"You made a new friend!"
"But he doesn't share. So I might not make him my friend."
"So, see, school is fun. You always don't want to go and then you always have a great time," I seat belt him in.
"I don't want to go back." He says, happily.
See this story in its original publication:
"The Prison of Preschool"
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