Building the Future While Healing the Past: An Artist Mama’s Guide to Pre-school

“You’ll want to ask about December 20th off. We will have not one, but two preschool events.”

My Sweetie the Chef, squints at our wall calendar early in the month. Of our household chores, I’m the schedule-keeper, but as an Artist Mama, I try to keep it playful. No advent presents for multitasking grownups, but I’ve sketched candies, trees, and presents in colorful dry-erase marker on the important dates. December 20th now boasts a large candy-cane candle, marking Hero’s field trip to the food bank and bakery with Preschool #1 at 9:30 a.m., followed by the “Winter Spiral” at his Waldorf school in the evening.

Without a doubt, one of my Best Of for 2024 was enrolling Hero in pre-school. 

Four days a week, split between two schools, each offering something different: A full day (9-4pm, one day a week across the street from our house with South Park neighbors, and 3 days with a Waldorf pre-school co-op, 9:30-1pm with long walks and a multitude of songs and story play to mark the day. With this arrangement, we can also accommodate my husbands weekday “weekend” as a restaurant worker with the Best Brunch in Seattle (their French Toast is Christian’s recipe).

I’m a little shy about admitting it, but despite years of being feminist, child-free adults, Christian and I have landed in stereotypical roles as parents: he works 50-hour weeks and brings in the larger paycheck, while Hero clings to me. I do the dishes, Christian tackles the laundry. He hits the gym before work and leaves at 7:30am. I work from home in my jammies, juggle my art, and bear the mental load of our household.

“I’m a Virgo,” Christian jokes. “It’s my nature to think like a woman—I am the mental load!” That may be in the stars, but it was Calendar-Master-Me who flagged the preschool application deadline for February 2024.

“You need preschool. It’s so important. I can tell you there’s an obvious difference in kindergarten between the students who’ve attended and those who haven’t.”

My mom sits on our blue moon rug next to Hero, who is laying out his trucks for her. She always vacuums that rug within 15 minutes of arriving for her weekly “Grammie Day.” A K-8 music teacher her energy is endless  and her focus sharp, especially when she’s with Hero.

“Your mom has a sparkle.” Christian always says this after we spend time with Grammie. She has all the answers and she always makes everything fun.

It wasn’t always this way.

1985, Renton, Washington

My mom pulls our orange VW camper into the parking lot of Sunrise Elementary School. She reaches over to unbuckle me from my booster seat. I’m almost four, and there’s a new baby—my sister, Nora—squirming in her cloth carrier on my mother’s chest, the same one that once snuggled me.

I’m no longer the baby, so I grab my mom’s hand, pulling her back and forth while asking questions: Where are we? Will she stay with me? I sing Raffi songs at the top of my lungs, and potty-dance as we make our way through the double doors of the elementary school for their pre-school program.

Kindergarten Enrichment was suggested to my 26-year-old mother during a desperate phone call to a social worker hotline. With two kids and a new job as a church music director, she didn’t know how to manage. She shuddered at the thought of her own childhood trauma.

A co-op preschool was suggested—reasonable tuition, snack duty, and only one child to care for at home for 20 hours a week. Plus, a community of parents and teachers to help encourage the creativity of eager, young Opal.

Now, decades later, she’s the Grammie who sparkles, the Grammie who offers help with tuition. The Grammie who knows everything about kids—including what she didn’t know when I was Hero’s age.

When it came time to choose Hero’s preschools, I trusted my intuition and sought programs like the one that saved my mother all those years ago. It felt natural, a continuation of a lineage of learning, healing, and growing.

I volunteer at his co-op, bringing snacks, laundering tiny placemats, or tying a ribbon rainbow on the entrance gate. It reminds me of when I traded hours scrubbing yoga studio showers for unlimited classes—a similar rhythm of exchange, minus the dollars and cents.

“I don’t like school! Why do I have to go?” Hero bemoans as I drive him, a new routine for me, thanks to the second vehicle my mom’s tuition help made possible.

“This Rubble has pink ears,” Hero announces, pointing to his Paw Patrol color sheet as we sit as a family, surrounded by crayons and markers at his desk. This beautiful 3-year old year has brought art back into my daily life. Watching Hero color outside the lines or build towers while my husband sketches trucks beside him feels like our family is in the middle of a love story – a slightly more structured one, thanks to pre-school.

My mom didn’t have anyone guiding her when she was a young parent. Her history, the eldest of 7 with a tumultuous family life, cast a shadow over her early years of mothering. But she found her way. And now, she helps me find mine.

Parenting Hero is a collaboration between generations. It’s informed by the pain we’ve worked to heal, the creative lives we’ve chosen to live, and the hope we pass forward. My mom gifted me music and resilience. I hope to give Hero freedom and joy and community.

“This year’s rainbow is the best I’ve seen in 30 years!” Other Mom, Morgan and I smile shyly. We’ve just met at the working parent gathering on Labor Day weekend, before the first day of Waldorf  pre-school.We were both picked to tie ribbon bows on the gate in front of the playground. I suggested a rainbow, Hero’s current obsession, and she was diligent with creating a map of which color went where. I learn she’s a scientist. It is easy to talk about parenting with her, that’s why we are here.

I can see that Hero has the sparkle. He is who he is, and I’m learning all about it. As an artist, I felt like myself from a very young age. I’m still learning who I am, even as I type this, but I have never doubted my creativity. I hope Hero will have the opportunity to choose himself in school, but…at age three, he already is! So…We might skip school today, There’s a Rubble to color—and as his mom, I get to choose what is the best way for him to spend his precious hours.

My mom and I, on my 43rd birthday.