Things I didn't know I was supposed to stress about

I'm reading "The Overachievers", a book about the extra-ordinary pressures that high school students these days are under to get into the perfect college. I spend a lot of my time contemplating the problem of education, now that May has arrived. (Before May arrived, I contemplated it, but from a purely abstract point of view. Now it's become very relevant.)

The public school system has massive gaping holes. I don't think that's any big-wow epiphany. But I'm not terribly worried about May not getting an education. With Christopher and I as her folks, she will learn. She may learn some weird stuff -- the molecular science behind egg whites in a soufflé or the economics behind WWII torpedoes -- but she'll learn.

However, the "good schools" seem to be nothing more than pressure-cookers, turning kids into test-taking robots trying to get into "HYP" -- Harvard Yale Princeton. Again, not a revelation. I've thought about this.

But I've got a couple, ten, years before I have to take a serious stand on the issue, right?

Apparently not. Apparently, the whole "good school" track begins now. Or soon. When I start making sure that May gets into one of the private, selective, expensive preschools. I read about this in "The Nanny Diaries" but I figured it was just a joke.

No joke.

A quick Google of local preschools in my area turned up the Agassiz Preschool, a co-op preschool for 2 year olds with a five-day-a-week program that runs just under $8K.

They want my two year old to go to school five days a week and they want me to pay $8,000 for the privilege.

And you laugh, and laugh and laugh and then you read this chilling statement:

Kindergarten Placement: Agassiz children have gone on to public school kindergartens, Shady Hill School, Buckingham Browne and Nichols, Fayerweather Street School, Cambridge Friends, and others. Teachers are available to help parents with kindergarten choices.

Oh my God. I have to worry about where May is going to go to Kindergarten? She needs to get placed?

And you start to laugh again, but suddenly there's this sick feeling in your belly that maybe this really does matter. I'm not stupid. I know that knowing people is more important than almost anything else. Maybe going o the right preschool is the way to go to the right elementary school (via kindergarten) and then onto the right high school and then suddenly May is one of these poor tormenter, tortured kids in this book I'm reading with her hair falling out from tress, getting five hours of sleep a night, running 5K races two hours after she takes the SATs and popping Ritalin and No-Doze to keep up.

And suddenly, home schooling sounds like an attractive option. Because opting out is always more interesting than doing what everyone else is doing, and she could get into Harvard with an essay like, "I learned the basics of biology while working at Polyface Farm for two months when I was 16."

Right about now, in these little mother-panic moments, I usually come up for air. But I'm going to eat some chocolate instead.