Kindergarten in 1970

In 1970 I was five years old and I went to kindergarten. Kindergarten was a one room private school across the street from the big and scary public school where the big kids went. There was no public kindergarten then. My mother had to pay for me to go to the little school. We were poor. Dirt poor. I don't know how my mother managed to pay for me to go to kindergarten.

We lived in what my mother called The Chocolate House. I don't know why; maybe because it was brown. It was the closest thing to a tenement that Joplin had. A little over ten years later I would live in The Chocolate House again but that's another story. I think it burned down recently and I'm glad to know that the chain is broken and my own daughter will never live in The Chocolate House.

The money wasn't the only sacrifice my mother made the year that I went to kindergarten. I remember some things vividly. In fact, this whole stream of thought came about while discussing fire drills with my husband.

In kindergarten we had regular fire drills. I remember them like they were yesterday. The thing that stands out is this: When the fire alarm went off, we were supposed to pick up our desks and carry them outside. I look at my son, nearly five years old, close to the age that I would have been then. He looks so small, too small to pick up a desk and carry it outside in a fire. I'm sure I was smaller then than he is now. Why did we have to save our desks? Some things never change. It was all about the money. If the school was going to burn down, at least those expensive desks could be saved. So now, carrying my desk out of the building once a month for a fire drill is one of the main things I remember about kindergarten.

I also remember class parties for holidays. This is where that other sacrifice my mother made comes in. She was one of our class party hostesses. She would always be there at those parties organizing games for us, serving treats that she had baked, and all that sort of PTA-mom-type stuff.

Looking back, I cringe for my mother. This had to be the one of the hardest things she ever did. She doesn't like kids. She didn't then. She doesn't now. She doesn't like excessive noise or chaos. She doesn't like snotty noses or unkempt clothing. Looking back, I'm certain she'd have rather been having a root canal that be at that school hostessing those parties and putting on a smile for the other moms.  She probably didn't like the other moms either.

I never realized before now, as I type this article, how very alike my mother and I really are. Just last month I signed up to help with a Christmas party for science club even though I'd rather be drawn and quartered than be there surrounded by other mothers and other people's kids.

At some of those parties, my mother would have been pregnant with my baby sister. I only know that because of the math involved. I didn't know it then.

In 1970 my husband wasn't yet born. My baby sister was on the way. I was in kindergarten carrying my desk around.

And my mother was doing the absolute best job she could do at being the kind of mother she thought she needed to be. 

Now my kids don't go to school even though kindergarten is free for everyone. That's me doing the best job I can do at being the kind of mother I think I need to be. She sacrificed so I could go to school and I sacrifice so my kids don't have to go to school. 

I wonder if some day my daughter will be sacrificing so that her kids can go to school while suffering through hostessing some children's party that she'd rather not even attend.

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