Infant School

When exactly did we become to busy to raise our own kids?

Kids used to start in the first grade. It made sense... numericly speaking anyway. Then they decided that wasn't good enough. Kids needed a jump start... so they started offering kindergarten for those who wanted it. It really wasn't school of course... more slightly organized playtime. It was just a way to get the kids aclimated to being away from home during the day.

But that wasn't enough either... so kindergarten became mandatory. After that it evolved into what the first grade used to be. Now its organized. Its not play time. And so its trickled down.

Playschool... which is what kids went to in the 70s and 80s is now Pre-school. Its developed into the kindegarden for kindegarden. Where as it used to be a few hours of supervised free-play and snack time one or two days a week... its now a 5-day a week 4 hour per day school schedule that mimmicks the public school system in almost every way possible.

For what?

So they can have jump start for thier jump start? This is progress? We've got preschools teaching 3 year olds about Abraham Lincoln for crying out loud. I don't see what a 50-year-old man should give a damn about politics... much less a 3-year-old boy.

And of course... the next step... is mandatory preschool. So follow the pattern... what's next? Right.. Pre-preschool.

I wonder just how much of this is related to genuine consern for education, and how much of it has to do with lazy parents who would rather shop all day than raise their kids. I've already met at least one mom who told me she didn't bother potty training her son because the preschool did it for her.

Its not enough that we torment our kids with 12 years of forced indoctrination... transforming them from humans to quadraped consumerist worker-bees... pack animals. No... better we should do it for 13... no... 14.

Lets face it... they're not really your kids anyway. They're society's kids.

Now hand them over and shut up.