Parental Choices
Today I feel like I’m in an abyss of choices. We’ve been hoping that Sara Ellen could start at Cupertino Cooperative Nursery School soon. I’ve been making sure the VP knows we’re still interested and recently she sent out the email to wait-listed families asking that we inform her of our positions for the fall; if anyone has chosen to attend another school or are no longer interested. Part of the reason we chose the school was the afford-ability. The cost is low because of the cooperative aspect, parents work in the school once a week and commit to other regular responsibilities. When we registered I was thinking ahead to having another child and I asked if I could bring my infant and perform class duties. Understandably, it’s not possible to do both. Tim said he could help out in that capacity. As we get closer to Sara Ellen’s potential enrollment, and now the birth of a second child, our needs and availability become clearer.
The price is still great, but can we as parents actually participate? I definitely won’t be able to do the weekly work. Even if I were not going to be exclusively nursing baby #2, I’m not sure who I’d leave her with anyway. Tim’s schedule is now so full and sometimes unpredictable that we don’t know if he can still take the time to work at the school. All I can think to do right now is start looking at schools again, a task I really don’t want to do. I do not like researching. Most are much more expensive, there are the visits, recommendations to find, and the worry that even if we find one we’ll be on another waiting list. And Sara Ellen’s at the age where I could even begin looking at elementary schools, opening up a whole new can of worms!!
Is there a best choice? Or, are there lots of good choices? Should I just be looking at the local public elementary schools that feed into the highly-rated upper schools nearby? Or, should I look at independent schools that offer more levels? I wanted to be involved, but it doesn’t seem like I can do at least what I had hoped. Do we have yet to realize that we’re just going to have to shell out more money? And even once we make the choices, we’ll still be concerned if we’ve made the right one. As challenging as being a mother at home can be, wanting to find engaging activities to enjoy together, it’s a lot of fun, and making choices for us to grow on is getting trickier.
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