Best Baby Doesn`t Equal Best Parent

December 12, 1986|By Anna Quindlen, New York Times News Service.

The director of the school broke the news to me last year that my older son would probably have to be held back a grade. It seemed that most of the private schools had a cutoff date of Sept. 1, and he had been born on Sept. 11 but had somehow slipped into the class ahead. If he stayed, he would always be the youngest.

The director talked some about gross motor skills and reading readiness, but all I could think of was my poor kid being the last one in his class to grow out of preteen clothes, to get his driver`s permit, to shave. I pictured him standing up, the youngest boy in the 9th grade, careening from bass to soprano in a single sentence, and I said without hesitation (and without any thought of reading readiness): ``So he`ll stay back.``

``Thank God you`re being so calm,`` she said. ``Some parents just can`t accept that their child will be a year later in getting to Harvard.``

The child we were discussing was 2 years old at the time.

Several weeks ago I was talking to the director of a private school at a party. She thought I was being a little cavalier in planning for my older child`s future. I had not properly considered the entire program: the right preschool leading to the right kindergarten leading to the right elementary school and on to the right high school. ``Because of this second baby boom, the best colleges will be extremely competitive when he`s 18,`` she said.

The child is now 3.

How many years ago was it that I sat in a college dormitory with some of the smartest young women in America and talked about how we weren`t going to do it, no sir, no pushing our children to be doctors, lawyers, to produce Ph.D.`s and grandchildren. Too many years ago, I guess. Some of us are worse than our parents ever were. At least they weren`t covert about it.

My father gave me money for each A; there was no mystery in that message. As for me, I turn up my nose at those manic mothers with flashcards and superbaby books. At the same time, I was crazy enough to take my 18-month-old to an interview for admission to a preschool program. And I`ve heard worse:

people crushed by a letter of rejection from a kindergarten or devastated by the news that their children were not chosen for the advanced-placement track in 1st grade.

Sometimes I feel that we`ve all entered a sweepstakes for the most accomplished person in the world in the year 2025, and that we`ve got to get ready now. ``It`s a sweet, traditional little school,`` someone told me about one institution, explaining, I must add, why some parents were dissatisfied with it. Can you imagine being foolish enough to send your child to a sweet, traditional little school? He might turn out to be a sweet, traditional little person.

I understand why this is happening. We are a generation of people sailing leaky ships on uncharted waters. We want to make sure that the daycare centers, the sitters, the divorces aren`t really doing damage. And we are a generation of people who like to play by the numbers: 750 on the verbal SAT, a starting salary of $65,000, two cars.

The job of raising children, however, doesn`t come with much of a scorecard. A writer has things published, a lawyer wins cases, a doctor saves lives. But it is hard to quantify what a good parent does. Children`s achievements tend to be small for a long time--eating with a fork, say, or taking off their own pajamas, or learning to use the toilet. School has always been a convenient way to say, ``Look, a high-performance child!`` which translates into ``Look, a high-performance parent!`` When a child receives A`s in school, when a teacher says he is the proverbial joy to teach, it helps. Here are some measures.

I don`t believe it harms a child to go to the best schools. I`m not sure that it necessarily does him a world of good, either. If he is taught to appreciate the beauty of Renoir, Henry James, Mother Goose and himself, perhaps all the pushing is worth it. If it means that he will surely write a best-selling book, become a partner in a large law firm, have a place at a prestigious hospital and a thriving practice, it might possibly be worth it, if all that came with other things.

If, however, it means that the child feels his parents are watching him, assessing his worth in terms of his place in advanced classes, his admission to the prep school of their choice--and if, in response, he becomes priggish, convinced of his own superiority, or a shadow of himself, convinced of his inability to measure up--it is deplorable.

One day over lunch, I asked a friend where she was going to send her young daughter to school. ``I`m not sure,`` she said. ``I`m not sure who she is yet.`` I was floored by her simple good sense, by her understanding that her daughter was a person, not someone whose primary function in life was to attest to what a good mother her mother was. She seems to know that there is only one way to measure children, and it is not by whether they receive a letter on April 15 that begins, ``We are pleased to inform you . . . `` It is at that time, unexpected, unsought, when you suddenly look up and realize that you have given birth to a person you like and respect, that you helped put the human in a human being.