End of the Road: A Pre School Graduation

This week has been a mixed bag of emotions in this role of parenting. I have had soaring highs with a perfect day of solo childcare; when all the stars aligned and we had beautiful weather, impeccable behaviour and exuberant health working in our favour. This was swiftly followed by crushing lows when sports day was announced 24hours in advance and a stream of meetings for me and a husband whose patients do not permit flexible working meant my little girl was left watching from the sidelines without a parent for the parent and child race.

However, all of this was nothing compared to the emotional torrent that was Pre- School Graduation. I had been more than a little vexed when I had to cancel my residential training course (which would have to be replaced with  tedious e-learning to be undertaken in my 'spare time') in order to attend a ceremony which is about as redundant as the cucumber slices I occasionally dare to leave on my daughter's plate, but RSVP I did. Fear not, dear child, I shall be there. The mere thought of leaving her, once again, to face a "momentous" occasion alone when the vast majority of her peers would be waving to their families in the audience meant that I was willing to appear, less than a "team player" in the workplace and forgot my previous commitments.

I will confess that I had no expectation for the event itself and certainly did not anticipate shedding any tears at the sight of my daughter bidding farewell to organised play in favour of formal education. I was there because I didn't want her to feel slighted. With only four years of life experience behind her this was a pretty big deal, she had been told so by those whose opinion mattered most; her friends and teachers. This was her being shunted into the world from the safe haven of everything she had known into a new and unknown vortex. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Then she emerged in a cap and gown and I realised that, for her, nothing would ever be the same again.

The Graduate

Having returned to the workplace when she was a mere 7 months of age, she had been part of this institution for the vast majority of her short life. It was everything and everyone, beyond her immediate family, whom she had ever known. Her nursery education was her only independent state; her friends and teachers were hers and hers alone. A place where I could merely stand on the outside looking in and would devour any morsel of information from her time there that she might choose to throw my way.

This day heralded the beginning of the end.