Kindergarten kompetition

So.

Time passes. D- is five now, no longer the toddler, and no longer in Parc Ex. New neighbourhood, older boy.

Older boy started school in September. Kindergarten. This week he came home with his first homework assignment. The teacher asked that each child learn one or two (not more, her note insisted) bits of information about spiders. If the child felt so inclined he could draw a picture.

I only noticed D-'s homework assignment as we were getting ready to leave the house on our way to school.

Right, I said, Let's get out the dictionary. I read the entry under 'spider' out loud to D- and then asked him if he wanted to make a drawing, he said no. Off we go, I said, heading for the door.

Noooo, D- said. It's not enough information, he said. What about pictures? He was starting to get worked up. He was close to tears.

What's the story? Well, it seems other little children had arrived with a whole plethora of information about spiders, with pictures printed from the internet, with glossy close-ups of arachnids hairy and wide-eyed.

And then it hit me, the overzealousness of over-involved competitive parents makes everyone have to work that much harder.

When I complained to a colleague at work, she told me of how when her daughter was in grade one and had to make a presentation, a classmate came with her own computer and made a power point presentation. Grade one!

In the end, D- made a drawing of a spider and a web. I wrote out a few facts about spiders (more than two but less than five). But I insisted that if one child said five or six things about spiders well, there wouldn't be anything left for the other children to say.

Lord help me.

After skating

After skating, we drove past a Caribbean restaurant that I love. Realizing there was little to eat at home, I pulled over and we went to get some roti and a mauby drink. Unfortunately it was closed. Across the street, was a smaller, less frequented restaurant: "Canadian and Caribbean cuisine". We walked into what on closer inspection was a bar. The patrons all stopped and stared. One old fellow called out, "you want the place next door." Next door was a laundromat, but a few doors down was a tiny restaurant, painted bright yellow and orange. In we went.

The menu was handwritten on a piece of paper. The waiter slash cook slash ambiance-maker was a young guy, with a thick Island accent. "How you doin', mon?" he asked D-. D- looked at him blankly then said, "I want some juice."

Some young men at the front of the restaurant seemed intent on watching all the cars that passed in the street while rifling through carrier bags that they had with them. When a police car slowed in front of the restaurant they got riled up and one started to yell, "What are you looking at? I want your badge number" at the police outside. He went out to discuss this with them. D- tried the fish. I drank my soda.

A lady came in and started to sing loudly. She had nice hair and staring eyes. I suspected mental health problems. She shimmied to the back of the restaurant while the waiter cooked a chicken roti for a gentleman who held a whispered conversation with his phone. When the waiter came back out he asked Wild Eyes to make a salad for potential patrons. It took a while for her to understand. "You gonna make me a salad?" she asked. "Who is the salad for?" she asked. Finally, she opened the cold storage and started to fiddle about.

The waiter-cook, with no more orders to fill, sat at one of the tables. "Why is he sitting down?" D- asked. The waiter brought him some more plantain and again attempted conversation. "You enjoying it, mon?" "Thank you," said D-.

The street-watching boys went on their way. Wild Eyes went into the kitchen to make the salad. We finished out dinner and I left a hefty tip. Fish plate with two drinks: 12$. Island ambiance in the middle of Montreal: priceless.

Fail

D- didn't into the gifted school. Over two hundred and fifty kids apply to get into the kindergarten class each year. Twenty are accepted.

I didn't really expect him to get in, but for one gleaming moment, I did. That moment of hope made the letter of rejection that much harder to read.

It happened like this:

We went to the initial test one Sunday morning in November. D- was in the second group of children being evaluated that day. The principal, in a suit, told us how the testing would proceed. The children would be called by name and would gather in groups of eight to be evaluated by smiling young women with clipboards. The parents could watch a video. The principal spent some time setting up the video on his laptop, giving us a glimpse into his home life, two smiling girls sitting on a lawn in appropriate dresses.

D-'s name wasn't called. My anxiety levels rose. Eventually he was added to a group and taken off by the stereotypical big-bummed secretary. I watched the video. But I also watched the other parents. Who were these people who thought their kids were so smart?

D- came back, cagey about what the test consisted of. "Did they ask you math questions?" No. "Was it hard?" No. We went home and I told my friends and family that it had been a waste, his name not even properly on the list.

Then, the hope. A month later, we received a letter saying D- had been invited back for a second test. It seems that of the 250 who apply, 28 are called back and 20 (20!) are later selected for the kindergarten. The first test, an IQ test, eliminates the majority. The second test, a sociability test, eliminates the few.

My son had made it past the first test, leaving other kids in the dust. His father and I danced hubristically, envisioning a streamlined career towards space travel or medicine or groundbreaking science. We gloated about the genius of our son.

On a snowy day in January, we returned to the school. We crowded into the lobby with other parents, many of whom looked as surprised as we did, and well-dressed children, milling about asking each other questions. We left D- in the classroom and went to breakfast to celebrate. Victory was at hand. Did you see those other children? Fools, all of them! We drank coffee and rubbed our hands together with glee. When we picked up D- he misbehaved, running in circles in the gymnasium, climbing on the benches. I could feel the eyes of the other parents, their children docilely accepting coats and hats, while D- rolled on the floor in glee.

It's a shoe-in, we thought. We told our friends and family. They claimed to have recognized D-'s genius from an early age.

Then came the letter. On a bloody wait-list.

And I realized that much of my hope had not been about D-, but about my desire to be the recognized parent of a gifted child. That my disappointment was about my own insecurities and not so much about D-. When I read the letter, all I could think about were the other parents, who had watched as D- ran around the school, releasing his pent-up energy, how I would not be able to vindicate the judgment I had sensed in their eyes by showing up on the first day of school and yelling, "A-HA!"

I never thought I would be this parent. I am so glad D- thought it was all a game.