Are you heading (or dreading) back to school? Did your kid just start taking the school bus alone? Are you filling out college applications? Tripod has all the resources you need, starting right here. Read about Spike Gillespie's "second grade the second time" as she sends her son Henry off to school, meet other students and parents in our Pods (Tripod's special interest groups), and talk about back to school issues in our chat and message boards.
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by Spike Gillespie
Henry and I are standing in the dressing room at Sears. Henry is seven. I am
thirty-four. We are mother-son, confidant-confidant, best friends, roommates.
We are twins, different sizes, different ages — but we are twins. His eyes
reflect mine — so very much the same that people stop us to point this fact out, as if we had no idea.
In Sears, I am also passing on a ritual. As Henry picks a new pair of jeans for back to school, so I shopped with my mother, nearly three decades ago,
filled with all the same hope and anxiety that new clothes and a new school year can bring.
My uber-decisive child agrees to try on several pairs, but only to assuage me.
He knew the moment he spotted them on the rack that the big, baggy, phat jeans — the ones with the sporty racing stripes down the sides — were the ones for him (his choice influenced by the teen skateboarders in our
neighborhood and his recent obsession with Spice World).
"I'm SURE I want THESE, Mom," he insists as he tugs them on, and continues
to insist so, despite the fact they hang halfway off his butt.
Back home, he struts around the house in his purchase, though it is days
before second grade commences. "Are you nervous?" I ask him.
"Not really," he says, and pauses. Then, waxing philosophical, he adds, "You
know, in first grade, I was really nervous the first day. I thought it was
going to be hard. But after the first day, I felt fine. But I do think second
grade is going to be harder."
I agree with this assessment, but point out to him how capable he is. His turn
to agree. He's going to be fine. We both know it.
Finally, the eve of second grade arrives. Henry takes a thorough shower,
announcing from behind the curtain, "Oh, I am sooooo excited!" Afterwards,
anxious not to be late the following morning, he dons his first day ensemble — a thrift store soccer shirt and those new pants (which he will beg to wear every single day). Dressed like this, he lays down to sleep. I don't laugh, though I am amused: Second grade is serious business.
Neither of us sleeps well — that's how it was for me every single night-before-the-first-day, even in college. Now, I toss and turn for my son and all of his expectations. Despite the lack of shut-eye, he leaps to life an hour before the alarm, and he doesn't need to shake me twice to get me to join him at the breakfast table. Fever-pitch excitement has us bouncing off the walls.
We are nearly two months into second grade now. Some of the thrill is gone — no longer do we spring from bed so quickly (both of us deferring, by week two, to our night owl tendencies, our distaste for the a.m.) Still, there is at least a little newness every day, as we sit after school and struggle with homework. It's not that the assignments are too difficult. It's that we are also both stubborn. Henry will sit there, successfully solving a word problem, but angry that he doesn't understand precisely how it works.
At first, I'll attempt to soothe him, tell him to breathe, tell him he can
understand it. He will yell, "No, I CAN'T." I will get frustrated, raise my
own voice, and insist, "Yes, YOU CAN." And he can, and he does, every time.
Henry is only just beginning to understand that, all through our lives, we take on challenges, and nearly every time those challenges initially
invoke a sense of I-can't. I can remind him that he once couldn't add double
numbers, but it doesn't matter — he's too immersed in his latest challenge.
How much I suddenly recall of my own second grade experience. The voice and laughter of my teacher, Margaret Heacock. The name of the boy I thought I should marry. The assignments I botched. The hell of trying to understand phonics and making outlines. These are the memories that stop me when I get impatient with Henry's impatience, when I see him struggle to reach for that mental light switch we both know is right there.
Second grade IS harder than first grade. It's a genuine watershed year,
when teacher coddling diminishes and number two pencils are wielded far more
frequently than crayons. I watch my child and wish there were a way for me
to briefly transport him to the future, to a place where he could look back
on this moment. He might go easier on himself as he struggles to understand so very many new things — from math to peer politics — at once. Instead, he transports me to my past. Second grade is hard, Henry. And I had no idea how
very hard, until I watched you strive to meet the challenge.
Spike Gillespie lives in Austin, Texas, with her son Henry.
© 1998 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Education Pod
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College Life Pod
Not just pizza! Find fellow college students here.
Parenting Pod
Talk about back to school (the good and the bad!) with other parents.
Moms Pod
All things maternal right here.
Teen Pod
Back to school time — you're not the only teen who has to suffer through this!
BookTalk Pod
Is your reading list overwhelming? Get help in the BookTalk Pod.
Share the ups and downs of heading back to school, in the Teen Pod Chat on Friday, October 16, 5:00-5:30 CST.
Meet other students in the College Life Pod Message Board.
Make some new friends in the Teen Pod Message Board.
Talk about violence in elementary schools in the Education Pod Message Board.
Does back to school make you more nervous than your kids? You're not alone! You'll find great conversation in the Parenting Pod Message Board and the Moms Pod Message Board.
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