PRE-SCHOOL'D

I swear I’m still crowning when a friend asks me where I’m going to apply to Pre-School. She’s just put her kid on the list for Sunshine, Sunlight, Sunstroke, I can’t remember the name, but apparently it is THE school in LA. The same parents who want their toddlers to go to Pre-Schools that boast independent thinking as part of the curriculum, have to go to THE haircutter, THE pediatrician, THE baby store. So it comes as no surprise that Angelenos want their kids to go to THE Pre-School.

“You know,” my friend warns not moments after I’ve been stitched up and introduced to my 4- second old child, “Fetus’ are turned down for applying too late.”

I know Pre-School is a big deal. I want my now 5-second old child to go having always had fond memories of my own Pre-School experience, but I guess I thought I had a few months, even longer before worrying if he’s going to get into THE school so he can learn to sit in a circle without picking his nose. But I live in LA where being competitive is a competition. It’s never too early to start thinking and worrying about your child’s future and how you’ve ruined it. So with a child not yet days old, my Pre-School panic attack begins.

I talk to friends who have been through the process with their own children. Each suggests I go see Claire Duncan Hayes, Los Angeles’ Pre-School Guru. So I make the drive across town to her Pre-School Workshop. She’s helpful, informative, and frank.

After some introductions, Claire gets down to the real reason we’re all here. We want to know how to get our kid into Sunshine, Sunlight, or Sunstroke. We want to know how to get into THE school that can start our children’s futures off right.

“You” she says without looking up, “You, the Jew from the entertainment business whose kid has a weird name.” she continues again without looking up. No one answers.

That’s all of us, I offer.

“Exactly,” she says. “LA is about as diverse as Buckingham Palace. These schools want someone who adds something different to the experience. None of you are getting in,” she says without apology. “Unless…” she says while looking around the room. “Unless you can stand out.”

Claire spends the next 20 minutes talking about diversity, which is the LA Pre-School buzzword. In addition to “independent thinking,” schools in Los Angeles boast diversity. It makes parents feel better about the fact that while they want their kids exposed to different types of people, they don’t want to live near them.

Suddenly, I hate being white. Worse, Jewish. Where I grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco, being Jewish was by definition diverse, but now I’m just another one of many families going to temple twice a year in between trying to balance making it in the entertainment biz and raising our oddly named children.

Then I realize just how much competition in the form of diversity this town has to offer. At the park, there are the two Moms who adopted a Laotian amputee last year on their way back from vacationing in Thailand. They can write their own ticket. There’s that damned single Dad I met at the pediatrician’s office fulfilling his dying sister’s wish to raise her child. No question there. And of course there’s the Rwandan family I met at Whole Foods who were airlifted out of their war torn homeland, brought to LA where the father happened on a winning Lotto ticket and claimed his 30 million dollars before the interpreter could even translate “You just won the lottery.” They’re rich, they’re African, and they’re in.

Damned double threats, I think to myself as Claire Duncan Hayes continues her lecture on why my son is never going to Pre-School.

And then it happens. There’s an infiltrator in what was otherwise a safe workshop filled with other families whose children’s lives are over. Diversity has exposed itself and is sitting to my left.

Just as Claire is about to go through the list of the city’s best and worst schools, the woman sitting to my left raises her hand. She and I had chatted over the cookie buffet and I learned that she lives in my neighborhood and has a boy born the day before my son.

She and I could totally be friends I think to myself before taking another Stella Doro.

But when she raises her hand and coyly asks, “Um Claire?” Claire responds yes without looking up. “What about cancer? Does that make you diverse?”

The whole room falls silent. For the first time in 3 hours, Claire makes eye contact.

“You have cancer?” Claire asks, “How wonderful!”

“And I’m pregnant,” the girl smugly adds.

“Even better,” says Claire as the rest of the participants murmur things like, “You’re so lucky!” “She’s totally getting in,” and “Nothing good ever happens to me!”

Pregnant with cancer sits gloating while writing down Claire Duncan Hayes’ suggestions for how to handle the interview process. The first being: “Don’t wear your wig to your interview.”

I can’t compete with illness or pregnancy, I lament. But I definitely can’t compete with a young Mom of two with no hair! Suddenly, I hate my hair too, one more thing about me that’s keeping my son from fulfilling his dreams.

One of the ten Jewish agents in the room raises his hand asking, “What can you do if you’re not diverse?”

Claire thinks for a second and then offers, “It’s all about what you are and who you know. So if you’re not someone special, start sucking up to your friends who are. They can help get you in.”

So that’s my angle. I may not be diverse but I am someone special. I’m my son’s Mom, I’ll always be special to him. If my kid can’t go to THE school because there are only two openings and I’m not from a remote village in Uzbekistan, well I suppose he’ll be okay. After all, I’m a Jewish kid who went to a Presbyterian Co-op Pre-School. My Mom volunteered for the day in order to offset the cost and I collected worms in the playground during outside time. I loved the worms, I loved seeing my Mom, and I loved my school, which wasn’t THE school. It was just a school.

So I decide to stop resenting all those who are diverse figuring that each Rwandan or cancer victim would pay their lotto winnings to trade places with me, my biggest worry being will my kid get into THE school, their biggest worries being far more life altering. My kid will go where he gets in, hopefully somewhere that teaches diversity and independent thinking. Regardless, he’ll still pick his nose, still have a hard time sitting in a circle, and still think is Mom is the most special person around.