(Reprise post from May)
Because you cannot afford to spend every minute with them does not give you the right to pre-plan every minute of every one of their days to assuage your guilt under the guise of helping them.

My daughter Tara turned 5 the other day.

That meant another 525,600 minutes of her life passed. (I know this tiny factoid not as a display of any special mathematical skill, rather the signature song Seasons of Love from the hit musical now movie Rent.)

We, being the silly parents we are, thought a party after school between 4:30 and 6:00 on a Monday afternoon at a local soft play fun factory would be great fun for all.

The tradition here in Wales is if you invite one kid in the class at this age you invite them all and between 15 and 20 kids show up, run around, gorge themselves on sugar and run around some more before falling into a sugar coma.

Tara had 7 children show up (two of which were her own siblings and a third was the sibling of another child we begged to be allowed to stay – it was a rather unseemly display).

My wife and I were devastated for her and immediately thought it had to be some sort of anti-American/anti-Dutch/anitwar snub. Alas the messages were there on the answer machine and here is a sampling…

“Hello, this is Cerys’ Mum. Unfortunately Cerys cannot make it to the party, she has swimming lesson and next week is her big swim exam and she already missed two classes this term and cannot afford to miss a class so close to the test.”

“Hello, this is Brendan’s Mum, Brendan has piano lessons on Mondays and cannot attend, sorry…”

“Hello this is William’s Mum, I am so sorry but unfortunately he cannot make it, he is in a science group meeting that afternoon and their group experiment is being presented tomorrow ta-ra.”

“Hello this is Sara’s Mum. Thank you so much for inviting her unfortunately Sara has a dance recital rehearsal that afternoon that she simply cannot miss and…” you get the picture.

Again dear reader, we are talking about 5-year old girls and boys.

Girls and boys who are subjected to the UK’s 11 core national curriculum requirement from the time they enter school in reception (kindergarten). These tender babies are being told to sit still and learn how to write and read and become molded into perfectly behaved little gentlemen and ladies with thoroughly organized activities and play-dates every day of the week.

Already with two in school I am thinking about hanging a taxi medallion on the side of the station wagon and charging a ‘friends and family’ rate for weekend events.

(Tara is now a healthy 7-year old, still quite busy and happy. There are now 3 in school. This was written for Children of the New Earth Magazine in 2005.)