In the past I have been extremely grateful to the school gate and its enforced routine. It has in fact been a mainstay of my existence for over twelve years; sixteen, if you count nursery. Schools provide about 200 days per year of instruction, so that's 2400 days, approximately, of school-gate-attendance. Give or take. In the beginning, the September when my eldest entered Reception class (aka kindergarten) in Durham, I became an uneasy new supplicant at the altar, staying obediently behind the low chain link fence in the play-yard at St. Oswald's C of E Infant School. In the sunshine, then as the year progressed, in the wind and rain and bitter cold and occasional snow, with a toddler in tow and later on a baby too, I waited, slowly making new friends of the other Reception mums. Eventually the crocodile of children would straggle out, and press their little faces against the wire diamonds, looking out for a grown-up to claim. Oh, the agony of being late, back then! We would often head en masse to the little park next door, and let the children play for awhile. It was quite an evangelical establishment, that school; come spring, the children happily acted out the Crucifixion under a tree with a couple of large branches. The other mothers smiled on, benignly. Beatifically, even. I did not really fit in that group.
Moving from Durham, in The North, to Brighton, in The South, set me adrift: I had no job, no community, no friends. They came, eventually, the latter two largely from my attendance at the gate of the tiny private school we selected for our elder two, having been foiled by the state sector and the timing of our move. The youngest grew old enough to join her brothers there. Our family friendships blended into the children's, all built within the school walls but perhaps even more importantly at that old school gate. This particular school, The Fold (which, sadly, folded after we left) in fact had no gate but a front door, as if to a house, which in fact this school had been. I spent many hours in the small front hallway, crowded with other parents, reclaiming our children. At the Fold School, children whose parents did not arrive on time simply skipped out to the backyard for supervised play, free for the first half-hour (or so), then morphing into after-school childcare. If I were going to be late, I simply phoned and said so. Many times, I arrived relatively promptly, only to be instructed by my offspring to please just wait till the end of this game, or to go away and come back later.
Moving from Brighton to Toronto was a bigger adjustment, more traumatic in several ways, and again, the school gate provided salvation. Friends, knowledge, engagement: not only in a new city but a new country to learn. Finding familiar faces, arranging social activities for the kids and for us, the parents, were largely negotiated while collecting the children. This school gate is something between the rigid barrier erected at St. Oswald's and the relaxed hominess of the Fold. Children in Grade 6, my daughter's age, are set free into the Big Field and allowed to entertain themselves until parents arrive, or they can walk home on their own.
Grade 6 is the final year of elementary school. Middle school looms, and parents do not escort their offspring at that age. Middle school has no gate. In truth, this child is already old enough, and sensible enough, to walk herself between school and home. Sometimes she does make the journey home with a friend, just the two of them. She resists, though, leaving school alone. She wants me to meet her. Practically, she wants me on the spot so that she can negotiate after-school social life, to invite friends over or be invited, but also because she wants to need me still, to be a little child a little longer.
I, on the other hand, really feel that I am ready to move on. It's nice to see my own friends at the school, but they would still be my friends even if we did not meet there. I've got their numbers. I like being home, waiting for my children to come to me. My high-schoolers tumble through the front door and chatter over each other telling me about their day while I make tea, or empty the dishwasher, or start dinner. I feel more like my own mother at those moments. My mom never had to go through this particular transition, because from the earliest schooldays, she ushered her three children out the front door at 8:30 a.m.and received us when we got home at 3:30, until we were old enough to have our own keys. What she did in between was anybody's guess. If my sisters and I had to lay bets, we would probably have said that she sat in her bathrobe, drank coffee, and did the crossword puzzle, scurrying into clothes moments before we returned. Because there she was, ready with milk and cookies and seeming eager to hear what had happened at school. We ourselves changed into 'play clothes', ate our snack, did our homework, and ran outside to ride or roller-skate or play handball against the garage door, or snatch pomegranates from the neighbours' trees. We had to be home by the time the streetlights came on. That's how I remember it, anyway.
My sister, whose own youngest child has just started at university, said to me recently when I complained about the school runs, "I truly miss those days." I thanked her for sharing that, and tried to argue myself into appreciating them, and to cherish living in the moment. Nonetheless. Monday through Friday, at 3:18, as I reluctantly close the computer, pack up my things at the office, put a bookmark in my book, or leave the dryer half-full, I feel annoyed, and harried, and late.
Can I be a little bit, just a tad, glad that I have a date with the school gate, for one more school year? Maybe. A tad. At least, until the first snow falls.
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