Shouldn't she be in preschool?

Have you met Violet? She's tall and smart and wonderful and makes people think that she's a little older than she really is.  And I think that's why I'm always getting the question, "Shouldn't she be in preschool?"

It's beginning to annoy me a lot.  First of all, she's 3.  THREE!  She has TWO YEARS before she starts kindergarten, and even that should only be a half-day thing in my opinion.  But I constantly meet people who send their one-year-olds to "preschool"(which I like to refer to as "glorified babysitting") and I feel like they think it's weird that Violet doesn't do the same.  Give me a break, people.  I already have to take my husband to school every day.  I'd like to wait until he's finished with school before our children start. (I'm not counting the once-a-week co-op preschool that we do.)

So the other day I responded to this question by saying that I may put her in a half-day preschool the year before she starts school, after we move into a house and Brandon starts his job. And the response I got back was, "it's too bad that you don't know where you're going to live yet, because it may be hard to get into a good preschool if you don't apply now.  There are some preschools where you have to apply before the baby is born, and even then, you still may not get in."

At that point, I couldn't contain myself anymore and I replied with a rant in which I might have made myself look like a terrible mom.

IT DOESN'T MATTER. I don't care if she gets into a good preschool. I care that she is in a preschool where she is safe and they take care of her, but that's all. Because once she starts kindergarten, they're all going to the same public schools and there's not much you can do about that.  If you find a highly exclusive preschool that claims that 80% of their "graduates" go on to Ivy League schools, know this:  it's only because parents who are obsessed enough with their children's education to spend months getting them into something when the kids can't even wipe their own noses are likely going to be that obsessive all the way to college.  And when they leave home, those kids are going to be on medication for depression because they've never been given the chance to do anything on their own.  I'm not that kind of parent.  I can let Violet learn things on her own (by the way, playing at home is a great way to learn things) and be confident that she will be successful in school because she is bright and creative. 

And it's not going to have a thing to do with her preschool.