Head’s Blog

It was great to see so many parents visit for Parents Weekend. It was a full few days with performances of The Tempest, a music concert featuring more than 200 students, an art exhibition, classes, and athletic events. The evaluations suggest that the vast majority of parents and faculty enjoyed the new format; so while there are tweaks to be made, the concept is a keeper. The school and our students showed their very best selves.

Many of the conversations I had with parents revolved around how nice it was to see their children actually in a school setting and so obviously thriving. For some parents, it was the first time they had seen their children in a couple of months and for some of those, the fall has been their first extended separation from their children. I find many of these conversations with parents both poignant and affirming. I have been through the process myself of sending children away to both boarding school and college and I know how it feels. Despite the pride that comes from seeing your children growing and thriving and gaining their independence, the loss of that 24/7 relationship can tug at you.

The passage of time does not simply mean that your children grow up. It results in very real changes in the ways in which you live your life, as you no longer do all the things that you used to do and you replace some activities with others. Building Legos, catching frogs and snakes, cuddling sick children, or welcoming them into bed in the middle of the night were just part of my young boys’ lives. Some activities I don’t really miss but others I miss dearly. Two personal favorites were going to children’s movies and reading children’s literature, and the combination of Parents Weekend and The New York Times Book Review section on the latest children’s fiction reminded me to these.

I loved going to kids’ movies and given that my children were born eight years apart, I had many happy years of doing so — ET, The Land Before Time, Toy Story, Babe, Finding Nemo. Both my boys loved anime, and we watched Hayao Miyazaki’s incredibly beautiful films together including My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. I desperately want to see Where the Wild Things Are — one of our favorite bedtime books —as well as The Fantastic Mr. Fox — Roald Dahl was one of Will’s favorites. But I am having a hard time persuading either my 22-year-old or my 14- year-old that these would be good movies to go to. Granted I enjoy the heavier and more action packed movies that they prefer today — but I am nostalgic for that, earlier, lighter fare.

And reading — it was my favorite times of day to spend 30 minutes just reading aloud some of the great children’s stories. As an immigrant to this country, I had not read any of the classic American stories, and so it was through my children that I could savor Charlotte’s Web or Little House on the Prairie. It was also my children that gave me an excuse to read British classics that had not been part of my own upbringing — Beatrix Potter and C.S. Lewis to name just two. We loved Dr. Seuss and anything Dahl.

We continue to swap books as a family. All things must pass, and now I can share with Matthew my love of James Welsh’s Fools Crow, the more edgy Catcher in the Rye, and the delights of Bernard Cornwell.  With my older son it’s the all school reading, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, which he loved. He is now on to Tipping Point.