spinofflive
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

ParentsMarch 9, 2017

Flunking Toddler Idol: A nightmare morning at the B4 School Check

Guest writer
Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

When Simon Sweetman took his son Oscar to the B4 School Check, it did not go well – and what’s worse, it seemed like Oscar was failing the tests on purpose. A typical toddler tantrum, or something else?

I’m not a religious man. If you want to put your faith in, well, faith – good on you. Whatever gets you through the day. It’s not for me. But I’ll tell you, the difference between a four- year old and a five-year old, specifically the end of that wee gap, the light at the end of that tantrum-tunnel – it’s a godsend. No other word for it.

Half a year ago we had a kid questioning anything, challenging the lot, bargaining for one more of everything. It was occasionally funny – often we’d acknowledge a certain sharpness to his reasoning – but it was frustrating. It was annoying. It was sometimes debilitating. All of a sudden you’re back to the feeling of a late-in-the-night hangover that arrives out of nowhere, the early morning drudge, dead on your feet, wanting to put a hammer between your eyes just so you can feel something other than annihilated rage. You know, all those feelings you’re so grateful for because, with kids, your life has real meaning.

Oscar’s a good kid. He’s a smartass – we always said we were happy to have a kid ‘with character’. He’s got more than his fair share of that.

Things have settled into place now he’s a couple of months into school – but there was a time, one day in particular, when I thought he’d never make it that far, we’d never make it that far. That day, cue ominous music, was the day of the B4 School Check. It’s a thing. It’s even spelled ‘B4’, which is probably ironic. But I was so tired at the time I likely mumbled something about it being cute. By the end of our session I was so bamboozled I had no idea there was any other way to spell the word.

Photo: Getty Images

First, let me say that obviously the B4 School Check is a good idea. It aims to identify any health, social, developmental and behavioural issues that could affect a child’s ability to get the most from school – it checks hearing and basic play/coordination as well as basic awareness of colours, numbers and thinking and it’s – totally – a good idea. Until you arrive there on the day, lining up and taking a number like it’s some Toddler Idol competition.

Holy shit did he perform.

The puzzle that was placed in front of him to determine basic hand-eye and thinking was tipped upside down. He laughed. Then he stopped laughing. Then he mumbled to himself. Our examiner said nothing, started writing notes. I went into overdrive suddenly, “Hahahaha – he does puzzles all the time!” I said, pausing to wipe the first beads of sweat on my brow.

“Mmm-hmmm,” came the reply.

Asked to run to the end of the room and back, Oscar walked, then crawled, then staged a pratfall. Then hopped. Then walked backwards. His shoulders were locked in a perpetual shrugging match as if he figured he might “s’pose?!” his way through any question and every task.

Suddenly I’m reaching for my phone in case I need to play a video of him dancing, or flash a picture of one of his very best paintings! I fucking hate myself and this test. In that order. No, maybe it’s the other order. Anyway…

The ordeal goes on. It’s suggested that we “book another time” but no one really has time for that – not me, not Oscar, not the examiner who made the suggestion. She starts writing a bit more furiously. Every time she has her head down – every time – Oscar looks at me and smile-smirks. At one point she looks up just as I’m gritting my teeth and whisper-shouting “BEHAVE!” I even think, for a second, that she thinks it was directed at her and not him.

Oh god it’s a clusterfuck. It’s the actual worst. Flunking the B4 School Test. On purpose. For larks. For shits. And/or giggles. Fuck’s sake.

I plea-bargain with the examiner: it’s obvious he can do everything she’s asking, if only because he refuses to properly attempt anything at all. It’s flimsier than that time I talked my way into a university exam after not attending any tutorials by announcing that I had a rare condition known as “Exaggerated Nausea”. And then – the realisation: ‘Oh shit, this problem right now started back then! Fuck. Double-fuck. Shit.’

The examiner waits until I stop swearing and tells me that – all things considered – she’ll be happy for us to do the hearing test and “if there are no red flags…” she’ll make her decision. No red flags? I’m basically seeing nothing but red. Feeling it all on my face too. At least a flag might cool me down if someone could wave it at me.

We do the hearing test. Which means Oscar does the hearing test. And I sit there digging what’s left of my fingernails into the vinyl of the chair.

We’re given some forms to pass on to his daycare – they’re going to sign them and add their notes. And then we’ll get a certificate or something. A tick. A badge of honour.

We leave the room punch-drunk. The cool breeze as the door swings back has me tasting a special type of freedom. My mind puts on its best Morgan Freeman voice and I hear that yarn about Andy Dufresne being someone “who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side”. Of course I don’t hear the name Andy Dufresne, since there’s no chance Tim Robbins could have acted as cool/uncool as I did in there. No. I hear the name Simon Sweetman. I hear “Simon Sweetman crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.” I pause to drink in Morgan Freeman’s kind and knowing assessment of just how tough it was for me in there. And then I buckle Oscar up in the car-seat, mumble something about being disappointed, and get in the front seat to head home.

“Daddy”, says Oscar timidly.

“Yes!” I snap.

“Can we have some food now please?”

I look at the clock in the car. It’s after 1pm. I think about when he last ate. Sometime around 6 or 7am. In the panic to get to the test, to be ready for the test, to ace the test, to show off at the test, to clock the test, get the best results ever at the test, maybe even get a special mention at the test – you know some sort of acknowledgment that I stopped work for the day and turned all the cartoons off and was clearly Father of the Year, and that the kid, as a direct result of my parenting, would be an asset to any school and, so, ‘good for him’ but mostly, you know, ‘good on me’ – I HAD FORGOT TO FEED MY CHILD!

His acting up, his lack of interest, his inability to care, to focus, to understand, to try…none of it was because he was secretly Stewie Griffin or Hannibal Lecter. And all of it was because Useless Fuck-Dad (me) had forgotten to feed the boy.

We fuelled up. He flicked the switch – straight away. Reverted to being a great kid bursting with character. That burst, of course, was due to some energy actually going in.

A week later a certificate-thing arrives, giving “us” the all-clear, the tick. He can go to school. Which is just as well, because so long as I pack enough food into a box at 7am I can now forget about having to feed him until several hours later and never feel guilty. Something I hadn’t ever thought about B4.

More Reading

Follow the Spinoff Parents on Facebook and Twitter.

This content is entirely funded by Flick, New Zealand’s fairest power deal. In the past year, their customers saved $417 on average, which would buy enough nappies for months… and months. Please support us by switching to them right now.

[contact-form-7 id=”249″ title=”Flick Connect Form”]

Keep going!
Clapping theater audience
Clapping theater audience

ParentsMarch 8, 2017

A message for the mothers, the aunties and the grannies – and all the women: We value your work

Contributing writer
Clapping theater audience
Clapping theater audience

Because it doesn’t get said enough, Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw has a message of thanks for all the overworked and underappreciated women of the world.

Here at The Spinoff Parents our kaupapa is to love, uplift, care for, and support all parents – but especially mothers, would-be mothers, and all the women who support mothers. Our resident Dr Jess has this message for our wāhine: on this International Women’s Day may you know how valued your work is. – Editor, Emily Writes

Women, we value your work.

Women who do not have children, we value your work, your support for others who have children, and your equal value. We value the hard work it can be to be a woman without children in our society when others assign you less value because of it.

Women who work hard for women who desire not to have children, we value your work to give us freedom over own bodies, even while others devalue and demean and abuse you for this important work.

Women who are pregnant, we value the hours working, at what ever you do, when all you want to do is lie down and vomit in your own toilet. We value you because pregnancy is incredibly challenging for women no matter that millions of women do it every day. We value you even when every day women are discriminated against at work because of pregnancy

Women who give birth, we value your work giving birth, because it is visceral and traumatic, and amazing and vital, and has lifelong impacts that cost you physically and mentally. We value the work because this act of giving birth is what gives our society hope and purpose and continuation.

We value the work of the professional women who assist those who give birth, champion, and fight for women during this vital work of birth, many who are paid less because “it is women’s work”.

We value your work!

Sisters, friends, and mothers who support others in birth, we value the hard work of support as those you care for undertake the struggle between this world and another to give birth. We value the love and the time you commit to help other women. This work makes a difference, it has clinically meaningful benefits to women and babies; it is important work.

Mothers, grannies, aunties: we value your hard work in caring for babies and children, yours and others. For taking time out of your paid work to raise the next generation of citizens. Unpaid work contributes at least $40billion a year (39% of GDP) to the economy. Women do 65% of this unpaid under-recognised work. We value this work even when others might see it as no work at all.

Sole women parents, we value the hard work you do to raise our children. We acknowledge that you are paid the least of any adults in our society. We value your work even though others may punish you for it and push you to do ‘real work’, sometimes at the expense of your child’s wellbeing and your economic security. We value your work.

Women who are paid less than men, we value the work you do even when it is paid less simply because you are a woman. Because stereotypes that start as babies about the role of women have infiltrated our society to the point that others see you as less capable than men.

Women, we value your work and your knowledge of the pay gap even if others argue vociferously, aggressively, offensively on social media that this gap does not exist at all – people who having never read the research, debate the data, the science, the lived experience because they are scared of what it means to them. We know it is real and we value your work despite it.

Women who care for the elderly, for the disabled, for parents and children of other people: We value you for the work you do even though this work is paid less than others because you are a woman in a woman’s role.

Women, we value the work you do to look after your own parents when they are old, or children when they ill, and the time you will take out of your own career and earnings to do so.

Stay at home carers, we value the skills you gained while working at parenting and caring for no pay, even though others say this is of no value. We value it even when you are punished with less pay, less seniority than others around you when you return to work because you have “lost skills and time in the workforce”.

Women who work in paid employment when your children are young, we value your hard work even if others believe you should not be doing such work away from your children, but they say nothing to fathers who do the same.

All women, we value the work you do even though at retirement you will retire with less because the work (paid and unpaid) you have done throughout your life is not valued the same as the work men have done. We value your work even though when you struggle in retirement others say you should have just saved harder.

Pacific women, Māori women, women of colour and women with disabilities: we value your work even though you are paid less than men and less than other women. We value your work though others may believe there is no disparity between womens’ pay because they do not see it in their world of privilege. We value your work even though others may describe you as “less skilled”. We value your skills.

Transgender women, we value the work you do for communities even as your very lives are at risk. You fight to exist and be in a world that is increasingly hateful and hostile. We value your work. We  stand and fight with you, and for you, as others refuse to value you. We value the hard work of trans women of colour.

Women who fight for our equality, we value your work fighting for the rights  of women and for making us heard, even if those who are supposed to represent you use the very stereotypes you fight to devalue you. We value your work no matter what ‘type’ of woman you are.

Women who find yourselves poor, we value the hard work you do everyday to get through and provide food [PDF]. We value your work while others disparage you, blame you and treat you as ‘other’. We know that for those who find themselves poor the road is hard, the help is insufficient, and the stress is overwhelming. We value your work.

Women who are assaulted, abused and victimised, known and unknown, we value your work to stand up and fight for justice and for freedom from sexual and physical and mental assault. We value this hard, hard work even though others blame you and shame you and avoid doing the hard work they need to.

Women we value your work.

We know hard work.

We are women.

Wāhine Toa.

Dr Jessica Berentson-Shaw is a writer, scientist, and mother of two. 

Follow the Spinoff Parents on Facebook and Twitter.

This content is entirely funded by Flick, New Zealand’s fairest power deal. In the past year, their customers saved $417 on average, which would buy enough nappies for months… and months. Please support us by switching to them right now.

[contact-form-7 id=”249″ title=”Flick Connect Form”]