Hello Fellow Parent, and Welcome!
The Tickets
Back when my children were little, the preschool they attended in Manhattan reserved a block of tickets to a local one-ring circus. First come first served. The A+ moms jumped to collect their tickets the moment they became available and secured for their children ringside seats in the front row, for a surcharge. Then there were those of us who did our work, shopping, cooking, read our kid that “one more book” before bed, and only then did we click on the link to purchase circus tickets when seats in the second row were the “best available.”
The Circus
Friend, procuring tickets to that circus was the moment I became a “second row” parent, and here’s what I learned:
- It can be scary being a kid foisted into the front row by their ambitious parent. Clowns trying to hype up a crowd are scarier than they are funny for many three-year-olds (and some of us adults). It can be nice to have a buffer between yourself and a would-be Chucky.
- Horses may be pretty but are enormous compared to a preschooler. Some of the front-row kids shrieked with joy when scantily clad women on horseback came galloping toward them. Some shrieked for other reasons. My kid could duck behind the seatback the front row kids did not have as a shield.
- The second row was social! Popcorn was passed. Popcorn may have been passed in the first row, too, but we in the second row didn’t have to worry about the spotlight catching us picking kernels out of our teeth with a fingernail.
- By the end of the circus, our kids were so hyped up on sugar from cotton candy that they couldn’t have cared less where they’d sat. Front row, second row, even third row-seated children ran around the playground together after the show, fully integrated.
- I’ll admit, I felt judged by the front-row moms the next day at parent pick-up, especially Sarah Johnson (pseudonym), who dropped a comment about her little Joseph (also pseudonym), so brave, eye-to-eye with a dromedary (which wasn’t technically possible, since Joseph was all of three feet tall) with nothing between them.
- Bragging rights at parent pick-up were not worth paying $50 extra for a circus my three-year-old likely wouldn’t remember by the time she was in middle school. Parenting is hard enough without expending extra energy fighting for front row seats that may or may not be in our kid’s best interest.
The Aftermath
And now, finally, we’re extending this metaphor to the college admissions process. As your child enters the back-to-school (three-ring!) circus of junior or senior year of high school, I’ll caution you that being a front row parent can be as scary to your child as the most frightening clown of your nightmares. Many kids these days suffer a full-scale bombardment of college talk all day long from their peers at school. It’s our job, as parents, to be the buffer from college admissions stress at home, not the horse galloping full speed toward them talking nonstop about college, college, college.
I don’t know what became of Sarah Johnson’s son, Joseph. I do know that as a little boy, he had a mom so competitive that we second-row parents (and even some of those who surrounded her in the first row at that circus) politely avoided her whenever possible at preschool parent pick-up. In my fantasies, Sarah eventually chilled a bit. Maybe the Johnsons moved to the suburbs outside of Manhattan by Kindergarten, as many families from that preschool class did. Wherever Joseph attended high school, I pray to a higher power Sarah praised Joseph when he received a hard-earned B in math without questioning why it wasn’t an A.
Joseph is twenty-six years old now, the same age as my oldest. I wonder if he’s afraid of camels since he (allegedly) went eye-to-eye with one at the circus when he was three. By twenty-six, he’s probably a college graduate, and no one who matters (except his old college friends) cares where he went to college. At his age, prospective employers rely predominately on references and experience from previous jobs. Socially, according to Tinder, the top non-negotiable desirable qualities sought for dating are sense of humor, shared values and interests, and intelligence. You’d have to scroll way down on a Tinder profile to learn which college a potential partner attended (if any).
The Lesson
I hope Joseph Johnson has figured out (and you recognize) that ending up in the front row (or at a “top tier” college) is not always all it’s cracked up to be. For some students, second row is better.
Warmly,
Jill
