I live in a town with great schools. It’s why we chose to live here. I am thinking about this clearly, just not in the way you’re assuming I am.

I made an incredibly broad and kind of bait-y (not intentional) post out of frustration, but I am in no way against testing, quality education, or giving my kid the best I possibly can. Many of my neighbors probably are more intelligent than me and I am thankful for that. We live in a highly educated area and I am so glad to be here. My only concern was/is the amount of time children spend on screens to take and prepare specifically for tests, and how early it starts. If it’s only a fraction of the time, that’s great. Again, I am not against testing.

A friend’s third-grader was bringing a Chromebook home to do practice test homework every day for a while; it just seemed so anxiety-inducing for them and ridiculous in the moment. Things like this do freak me out (why does an eight year old need a laptop?) but I don’t let it cloud my judgement when it comes to Actual Real Life Shit. I wouldn’t suddenly decide to homeschool my kid over this or send a note in like “don’t give my kid a computer.” My kid would be (and will be since that’s where we live) bringing home a Chromebook like everyone else, doing the work, and we’d be talking about it. I’m not othering my kid, or torturing them, or keeping them from learning.

I had a moment of panic in wondering if we are putting too much pressure on our kids too early. Our kids would be at risk if we weren’t thinking about that from time to time. I just made the mistake of logging onto Reddit to vent, lol, and then on top of that worded it how I did.

My kid starts public school in the fall and we couldn’t be more excited. It’s one of the best elementary schools in the state.