My twins – Nicholas and Antoinette – turned three on the first of July, and I found myself in total panic knowing that they will soon have to leave the confines of our home classroom and join other children in a daycare center.
The decision to enrol them in a regular classroom was finalized during our 14-hour flight from Los Angeles to Cebu City when Jeff, my husband of four years, and I observed that our twins are having a hard time interacting with people in social settings.
For more than two years, I have been homeschooling my toddlers using the learnings I have picked up from studying a graduate degree on language and literacy education and from field experience I gained as a volunteer for various community organizations. When we saw Nicholas getting too aggressive with Antoinette and seeing Antoinette distancing herself from her twin brother because “he bite me always,” we knew it was time to let them go and let them mingle with other children and adults.
But the decision did not come easy.
Especially for me.
While I teach and preach the value of letting go for a few years now, I did not realized that letting go of my children comes with a flood of tears and a big dose of fear.
We decided to enrol our children in a government-run daycare center.
I am married to an Italian-American, so English is the primary language spoken at home although I speak Cebuano to my children. I reckoned that if they spend time with children and adults in a local center they will be able to speak and practice their Cebuano more.
I will hate myself if they grow as purely English-speaking individuals.
Not that there is anything wrong with children who only speak English.
But I am a proud Cebuano, and I feel that it is my inherent social responsibility to share my pride of place – hence, my language – to my children.
Because… after all… they are Cebuanos. They are Filipinos.
School already started for two weeks, but my children had their first day of school last Tuesday. Jeff and I accompanied them to their classroom, a 10-minute ride from our home. We were welcomed by Teacher Lorna and some mothers in the school.
Jeff told me to leave the twins inside the classroom and join him outside.
I pleaded: “Can I stay?”
“No,” he said.
I was tearing up as I told Teacher Lorna that I am going out and that I fully surrender my children to her because I believe in her skills and her authority to manage them along with the rest of the children in her class.
Outside, Jeff hugged me and told me that I did great. It took so much effort to get out of the classroom and leave the twins in the care of another person.
That is not to say that the twins’ first day at school was smooth sailing. Oh how they cried and dropped on the floor looking for Nanay. Antoinette was wailing, Nicholas refused to sit down… I was hiding behind a green wall witnessing all of these events as they unfolded.
I wanted to rush to them, hug them, and tell them everything is okay. But Jeff was my emotional guard; he kept my emotions in check.
I know my children are only three years old but when you have lived away from home for three years with only your children as your constant companion in foreign countries, it is difficult to suddenly wake up one day and find yourself without “pupils” in your home classroom.
Suddenly, I am not their only teacher.
Suddenly, I am not the center of their little universe.
Suddenly, I am not the only person in their lives who will teach them action songs.
Deepak Chopra said that “in the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.”
Their worlds are expanding and there are many things from the past that I need to let go now that their school bags have been packed and their black shoes have been polished. But I am hopeful that with this new adventure, I can now explore other areas of motherhood… starting off with dealing with other mothers and listening to my Mom about how she survived the first year when I, her firstborn, started school.
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