*

Before I moved to South Carolina, I was heavily influenced by the standard Northeast attitude that everything in the South was subpar, particularly its food and schools. You could hold a room spellbound by describing the watery tomato sauce you had at an Italian restaurant while on vacation in Myrtle Beach or the revelation that your son at Camp Lejeune got ranch instead of blue cheese when he ordered wings. Plus, they used to have slaves there. Slaves.

There persists an urban legend that a New York teaching certificate is universally accepted in any Southern state, that to be from the North is so prized that they will hand you a teaching job, no questions asked. And when someone moved back after a brief stint in the South, they invariably cite the bad schools as the reason. (Buffalo is full of people who believe that, despite their blue-collar existence in the 716 area code, they can move to Charlotte or Orlando, cities of milk and honey, and strike it rich. Live the good life in a mansion. Vegas, too. Lots of disappointed Western New Yorkers find their way back from Vegas far less smug than they were at their going-away party. In a mood more “suck up to former boss and co-workers” and less “Anyone who stays here’s an idiot.”)

Despite knowing better, I still absorbed some of these attitudes by osmosis. I was prepared to find the schools here lacking but have been a little chastened. Instead of an educational backwater, there are far more options in terms of teaching methods and missions, and the overall quality is as good and in many cases better. (I’m not talking about that latest survey that puts SC 50th in the nation in high school graduation rates. That’s a sad truth but not at all the case here in the non-rural upstate area.)

It’s hard to get the lay of the educational landscape when you aren’t a product of local schools, but I set to work. Shortly after we got Tink home, I found out that an elementary school with a partial-immersion language magnet program would be adding Mandarin to its offerings of Spanish and French. The Mandarin program ended up permanently tabled, sadly, but getting involved with the push to make it happen taught me more about the schools.

There are public, private and charter schools aplenty here. The magnet programs are impressive; there are single-sex charter schools capitalizing on the studies that show kids learn better in gender-exclusive environments at certain ages (amen); there are Baptist schools that boast test scores better than the best public schools (uh, thanks anyway). In addition to the language magnet program (which extends through middle and high school, by the way) where English is only spoken half of the school day, there’s a private French-speaking school. There’s a Montessori school that has expanded into the middle school years and will add a high school eventually. There are progressive homeschooling coops that make good use of independent art and music schools as well as the classes offered by the local children’s theater. It’s not at all what I’m used to.

There’s even a statewide online charter high school developed by some educators from the University of Pennsylvania. I would love this to be an option for Tink. It would work out well if she shows proficiency in some sport, or dance, and needs a more flexible school schedule. I mean, what if she becomes a semi-professional ballerina or competitive figure skater? It could happen. I would be more than happy to have her take a pass at school shootings and trading bulimia tips in homeroom. I do acknowledge skipping traditional high school means she’ll end up with a prom-shaped hole in her soul that will never heal and she’ll blame me for, but I’ll take on that burden if it spares her being a sex trophy because you know you get more points for banging an Asian.

In New York, there’s public and parochial (Catholic). And there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the public and parochial since Buffalo’s a pretty homogeneous town, made up of people who grew up there, so the culture, the values, the vibe is the same. My Latin teacher had my mom in class years before, a totally common occurence. Once New York allowed charter schools, they cropped up like mushrooms, but they grew too fast, devoted themselves to narrow, wackadoodle areas of study (the Western New York Maritime Charter School?) and many found themselves de-chartered. There’s not a single Montessori preschool. There is one Waldorf school, but people think those families are freaks, as are the very few families who homeschool. I wouldn’t be surprised if the lowest homeschooling numbers in the nation were found in New York State. Innovation just isn’t done there.

I should be smacked for sniggering at the Manhattan moms dithering over the optimal educational and developmental options for their extra-speshul snowflakes because that’s exactly what I did, too. I went to the open houses, asked too many questions and called the parents who offered to give me the inside dope. I was evaluating for the best fit for Tink but also for us. I believe school has to be right for the parents, too, or else parental involvement becomes parental intrusion.

For anything other than the nearest public elementary, there’s a process – applications, lotteries and/or admissions tests. I kept things lighthearted, telling Tink that we were going to see a school she might like and while we’re there the teacher might ask her if she can write her name, etc. NO PRESSURE.

This week I eagerly checked the mail until Thursday, when a fat envelope came. Inside was the acceptance sheet to be signed by me, some other informational stuff and the official letter, “We are pleased to offer your daughter a space in our full-day five-day kindergarten for the 2010-2011 school year.” Blah, blah, blah, asset to our school, blah, blah, orientation day to be held, blah blah, and there it was at the bottom:

Test scores: 91 percent.

I did not expect my reaction, but I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s read this far: My daughter was robbed.

What did she get wrong? What didn’t she know? What could you possibly have deducted points for on a test designed for kids who have had no preschool? She can identify and make the sound of all the letters, can count to 100 as long as you remind her that it’s in fact “30″ and not “20-10,” mastered shapes back before she was potty trained and is a champion colorer-inside-the-lines. For land’s sake, the kid uses the word “appropriate.” And she uses it appropriately! (”SpongeBob is not appropriate for me, right, Mommy?”)

I instantly wanted to call and reassure them that Tink did know the 9 percent of the test she got “wrong,” that there probably was some performance anxiety at work or she was unsure of her setting and was being given instruction by a teacher she met only minutes earlier. I wanted to point out she has a late birthday for rising kindergartners and that there was a mom there at the test day who told me her daughter will be turning 6 next month. Six! I wanted to tell them all the amazing things she says every day, how she’s got the vocabulary of a third-grader. Well, no, I don’t know that for a fact, but listen to her!

I wanted them to find her as extraordinary as I do.

She doesn’t know anything about grades yet but she will soon. Will they crush her like they do me? Will she find herself shamed and paralyzed by bad grades? Will they inhibit her natural curiosity, will she become so focused on the grade that she misses the point of great literature, of the satisfaction of learning for learning’s sake?

Or will she become a dirty little grade grubber like her mother?

I can see this is going to be hard. But not for her. She’s going to be just fine.

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There are brilliant multitaskers and fantastic time managers, and I’m neither. Therefore, the particular demands I’m under now are either conditioning for a yet more-difficult trial to come or I’m being fucked with. I think it’s the latter.

I have a job, a child and a husband who works 100 hours a week. And laundry and a body badly in need of exercise and a blog I neglect because I can’t face the emotions released by what I might write. What I’m in desperate need of – besides a script for amphetamines with unlimited refills and a personal trainer – are the clarity to see where the boundaries should be and the backbone to make everyone respect them.

Luckily, I’m enjoying the job, the job I really, really need. There are some nice perks to this job, but it’s a job nonetheless, with a company undergoing change. (Translation: You all can be replaced, especially you, recent hire.) Four days a week I’m functionally a single parent.

I think I have the weeks well-covered. It’s not pretty but it works – the kid gets off to school, the work gets done, and while I’m not happy with the real dinner vs. takeout ratio, I don’t think it’s a lost cause. It’s the weekends where I come completely undone.

By the time Saturday arrives, my daughter hasn’t seen her father for any more than 5 minutes since Wednesday, and she misses him. She’s whiny. My house, which also hasn’t received the full attention it needs, is whiny as well. We have breakfast at the restaurant, which isn’t as “yuppies go for their goat cheese and basil scrambled eggs” as it sounds because Chuck’s busy and can’t always sit down with us. We then do a day’s worth of errands. And you know how kids love their errands!

We should be spending the afternoon at the playground, or she should be riding her bike with her daddy while I go walking and for coffee with a friend, or I should do the grocery shopping by myself while he drives her to ballet. I’ve got more Saturday fantasies than is healthy. I make a big deal about our routine of listening to “Car Talk” and then the Met’s radio broadcasts. (”Noooo! We can listen to Barenaked Ladies any time! It’s time for those funny guys from Boston who talk about starters and oxygen sensors!”)

Saturdays wouldn’t be bad if I could spend Sundays cleaning, organizing and cooking a few things for the week ahead. I don’t subscribe to the full menu of wifely duties, but I do think, after the week my husband’s had, I should cook a decent dinner for my family on Sunday night.

The problem is, is what the problem always is. IT’S THE GODDAMN RESTAURANT. To be said in all caps, all the time, like SHINGLES! It’s always the problem, THE RESTAURANT. (Not the SHINGLES! Which I suppose is a problem, just not a My Problem.)

Sundays are busy. Their payroll is so tight they don’t have the help they need on a busy day. And I have, ahem, the day free.

I’ve spent almost every Sunday there since the place has been open, running food, seating tables, expediting meals, taking drink orders, processing credit cards, making coffee, pouring coffee and picking up chewed lumps of pancake from under high chairs. All while Tink sits at the food counter coloring, only interrupting me if she has to go to the bathroom. Half the time one of the Mexican bus girls takes her.

When I make change I give the waiters their tips, which they leave with. My husband and his business partner leave with nothing. I leave with a child who missed her nap.

So, what would you do? Would you have put your foot down? Would you sacrifice the smooth running of your coming week to help the cause? Remember, this is a business that doesn’t pay your husband and won’t any time soon. Would you stand firm and say, “No”? “No, I have a family to take care of and only one day a week to do it. We’ve got enough to deal with; I need this one day to impose some order and peace to my life”?

Or would you let guilt take over as you wonder what they’ll do if they get busy? Would you bow to pressure to pitch in with the attitude that maybe some day this business will be successful and these Sundays are an investment in future profits that will someday be your family’s?

Would you do it even if, before the restaurant opened, there was a nightmare of a showdown that ranks among the very worst days of your entire life when you were told that you will have no role in the business and that someone would rather pull the plug on the whole thing than let you be involved? But who now accepts your free weekly labor (and let’s not forget your 4-year-old daughter’s time, too) because he’s up a creek?

To say “I’m torn” is ludicrous. I’m torn, in every one of my obligations and in every emotion I have about them.

This past weekend was even worse than usual. (HOW COULD IT GET ANY WORSE? you ask? Oh, please. Nobody knows the fuckitude I’ve seen.) Saturday night the restaurant was giving a percentage of its sales to Haiti earthquake relief, and Sunday there was a mother-loving church service being held in a 15,000-seat arena three blocks from the restaurant. (Honestly, a church service in the same venue where the Wiggles and monster trucks have appeared, though not at the same time? Sometimes I completely get why atheists sneer.)

Tink and I got the restaurant around 6 on Saturday just as things were getting hairy. I didn’t have her Sunday bag of crayons, Hello Kitty coloring books and Spiderman dudes, and there really isn’t anywhere else to put her so I can keep an eye on her no matter where I am, so she sat at the bar with an old guy who comes in for dinner three nights a week, drinks a bottle of wine and then takes a cab to the upstate’s premier titty bar.

I worked well past Tink’s bedtime and once again, we had nothing to show for it. Actually, Tink left with $4. Mr. Phil asked her if she had a piggy bank and then gave her some money. I demurred politely but wanted to come right out and ask him, “Won’t you need those singles where you’re going tonight?”

She and Chuck ate Taco Bell after he got home. You know. Quality time.

She was a little, uh, off her game Sunday. As I was showering, crying and composing this post in my head, she came in the bathroom and told me we had to put her jammies in the wash. I asked her why. No reason. They just need to go in the wash.

Fuck.

She’s had more accidents than I’d like lately, and who’s to say why. Could be developmental, a stage, nothing to worry about or her reaction to an irregular family life. I’m frankly too tired to make more out of it than I should, which I guess is a blessing in disguise. But an accident on Sunday morning as I’m getting ready to go there when I should be here … it was more than I could take.

I yelled and then cried some more and scared her, of course. And then when I saw the two damp, wadded tissues on top of the underwear on the chair of her room, I laughed. It was her first deliberate attempt to pull one over on me. I think she did all she could and then realized she was going to have to fess up. It was a good first try.

Did that happen for a reason? Was it comic relief? A bit of much-needed perspective? Is this phase of my life two pee-soaked tissues, something sucky and inconvenient, but which, too, shall pass?

Would you be outraged that demands on your time by necessity means demands on your preschool daughter’s time? Because in a further slap in the face, I can’t ask anyone to watch Tink on Sunday – that’s the day everyone spends with their family.

Or should I see this as a cool adventure as Tink sometimes does? Should I take a special pride in the fact that she’ll have memories and experiences that make my white-bread childhood pale in comparison, even if it means those memories will involve making chit chat with elderly perverts?

Or, since my husband’s hands are tied and he can’t say it, should I be the one to say, “Enough”? Enough. My family comes first.

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He took her downstairs, made her pumpkin pancakes and set up the ridiculous skate park toy “Santa” bought for her that he and I semi-argued about in the days before Christmas. (Along the lines of, “What possessed you to buy that? I thought you agreed to our spending limits. I understand you wanted to get her something special just from you, but this? It’s … stupid. Actually, it would have been the perfect thing to buy back in June; wish you would have thought of it then,” etc.)

(And now that I’ve looked it up so I could link to it, I see he lied to me about the price. He is such a marshmallow where she’s concerned. And she loves the damn thing, of course.)

After I got up, we went to Starbucks, drove by my favorite lot in a neighborhood we’ll never afford and then went the park where we walked as Tink rode her bike.

The two of them then took a nap while I made a brownie pudding to take to a New Year’s Day dinner later.

It was a perfect day. And the next time we’ll be able to do it is Jan. 1, 2011.

Technically, we could do it Nov. 25, 2010 — the next day the restaurant will be closed. Or Dec. 25, 2010, but Thanksgiving and Christmas are full of cooking, brining, roasting and other obligations that they’re hardly restful days for my husband.

He was managing to take one or two days a month off, but he hasn’t had one since early October. And those have been Tuesdays, anyway.  We can’t have a leisurely family day on a Tuesday.

I don’t know why I’m writing about it. Maybe it’s bad juju to start the year off with a post like this. There’s probably little to be gained from focusing on the negative. I shouldn’t expose my family to smug reminders that we “chose” this.

So! Positivity is is. Broooownie puuudding.

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