My Youngest Child Is Done With Preschool, But I’m Not

When my second child was born, I looked at him with a mixture of wonder and resignation. How could newborn babies look so alike yet act so different? Unlike his sister’s meek, meowing cries, his cries were dominant, relentless, and ear-piercing. My INFP nature cringed at the thought of having to raise an embarrassingly loud child like this.

Predictably, he became the kind of preschooler who wouldn’t hesitate to gush about or guffaw at the countless things that excited him – whether we were on a quiet bus or in the library. And I became the mum who shushes her noisy boy in public.

Parenting a primary schooler (my daughter) and a preschooler (my son) has been tough on my sleep over the last three years, due to their different waketimes. On school days, my daughter gets up at 6am while my son gets up at 7.30am. I wake up at both times to help get them ready for school. That parental involvement is laudable (if I may say so myself), but it has left me with fragmented sleep and a disgusting sleep debt.

For most of my son’s Kindergarten 2 year, I was pretty much counting down to the days he would be out of preschool, and join my daughter in the 6am call time. As his developmental curve is gentler than my daughter’s, I’d naively expected his transition to primary school to be in line with him finally hitting “big kid” milestones, such as going to the toilet independently, reading and writing fluently, and becoming a more adventurous eater. Alas, preschool has ended and only one of those milestones have been achieved. Somewhat.

But what really got me hung up about his preschool graduation is the fact that I’m no longer a preschool mum. For all the initial anticipation, I did not expect reality to hurt so bad. In his last week of preschool, I experienced pangs of sadness and nostalgia, which morphed into something that felt like… grief.

My son, on the contrary, was nonchalant about his graduation. If anything, he was gleeful about the fact that he no longer had to spend nine hours in school every day – since he was in the childcare programme. In his words, school was “very boring”, and he’d very much rather stay home to play.

“Won’t you miss your friends?”
“No.”

“How about your favourite teachers?”
“No.”

“You won’t be seeing them again after this week.”
*shrugs*

Let’s call it the preschool graduation grief, where sentimental parents are the primary target.

Nobody prepared me for it – the day I was no longer a preschool mum.

Why grieve when I should be focusing on the present?

You see, being a preschool parent has its privileges. No homework, no tests, no stress. Teachers constantly tell you that your child is doing fine, and there’s nothing much to worry about even if your child is a bit slow to read, write or speak. So preschool life was a breeze, with my default parenting motto being “let him play and do what he wants, as long as he’s not harming/disturbing others, and doesn’t get too much screen time at a stretch”.

At the preschool level, I don’t have to make difficult decisions like telling him to stop drawing or playing with his favourite toys because he has to finish his homework first or prepare for ting xie (Chinese spelling). There are hardly any KPIs in preschool.

Come Primary 1 though, I will have to progressively set rules and tighten some. Be an increasingly no-nonsense parent because I cannot fathom the thought of him lagging behind. I know how that can affect his confidence and social status in school. I recall my primary school English teacher being nastier to the kids who weren’t as proficient at speaking and writing in English – it didn’t matter whether those kids were naughty or obedient. I understood then that a certain degree of academic ability is required if you’re looking to survive school with minimum psychological trauma.

I also have to be honest. Being a preschool parent makes me feel young, cool and relevant. In contrast, a primary school parent feels uptight, regimented, and – I dread this – kiasu. Because there’s hardly a way to escape this pressure cooker education system we have painstakingly established and are low-key proud of. Why else would the tuition industry still be flourishing despite gradual policy changes to ease academic stress in primary school?

A part of me also feels sorry for my son, for having to grow up. A preschooler can get away with most things but a primary schooler can’t. The latter is expected to know better because “he’s a big boy now”.

The shift from preschool to primary school marks the end of his “play” era.

From here on, life will only get tougher.

What’s next?

I wish someone had told me about preschool graduation grief – the mixed bag of feelings that engulfs you when your youngest child is about to leave preschool. The urge to freeze time and savour just one more week of having a preschool kid. It sounds crazy, but this grief is making me entertain the thought of having another child, just so I can live the carefree and precious preschool days again. (Maybe I should take that back.)

I don’t know how long it will take to get over this grief. But I know that I need to try living in the present more. Since “the days are long but the years are short”, it wouldn’t be long before my son waves goodbye to me as he books in for NS camp. By then, I’d be mourning not just his preschool days but also the following 13 years that flew by. Tissues please.

Soon, he will get too big for me to carry. Too awkward to cradle. Too stinky to cuddle. Too self-conscious to hug/kiss me. Too proud to reveal his insecurities. Too independent to desire my presence. Too cynical to believe everything I say.

To fellow parents in the throes of preschool graduation grief, you are not alone. We will get through it somehow. If you want to commiserate or share some wisdom, hit me up.

In the meantime, I will continue to do one of my favourite things as a parent: watching my child sleep at night, trying to lock in the memory of all that he is – right here, right now.

Estelle Low (@estellelow) is the editor-in-chief of The Singapore Women’s Weekly. She loves her kids unconditionally, but hates how parenting is a severely undervalued job. She has 29,352 photos of her kids in her phone – many of which are repeats she can't bear to delete.