Parenting Is "Brutiful": Reflections When Your Baby Heads Off to Kindergarten by Katherine Fraiser Oros

Before I was a mom, I didn’t understand or respect stay-at-home moms. Then my firstborn, Grant, was born. I also didn’t understand moms crying the first day of kindergarten. Now I understand it is the end of an era.

As my baby, Blake, heads into kindergarten, I am reflecting on so much. Did I do enough with him (both boys) while they were teeny? Did I teach enough songs, read enough books, take them enough places, give them enough snuggles? Did I model kindness, patience and love? Do they know enough about consent with their bodies and others’?

I am grateful for my time with my children when they were preschoolers. We frequented the zoo, the children’s museum, the science museum and took countless trips to Chick-fil-A, Kindermusik, parks, the bouncy house, splash pads and friends’ houses. We played games, crafts, Play-Doh and LEGOs. Honestly, I’m over it – all the little kid stuff and the summer in general. I am ready for a new chapter. But not without questioning myself as a mother on the decisions I have made up to this point.

Jerry Seinfeld said on his show, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” “I can only take my kids at any given age for a year. After a year I am ready for a new age.” Upon reflection, I know one thing for sure: parenting is BRUTIFUL.

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