Sheep

My five-year-old is refusing to go to school because he feels "uncomfortable" with the preschool graduation celebration he is being forced to practice every single day (for the event next week). I've written about the religious nature of the preschool before, and how I'm a totally hypocritical Jew for sending him there but am generally okay with the G-d messages they are passing along there (with some exceptions). But when I got the program for the preschool graduation (funny enough that there is a ceremony at all) this week and saw that they would be walking in a processional to receive their diplomas to the tune of (and sung by each child) "I just want to be a sheep, baa baa baa, I just want to be a sheep baa baa baa, I just want to follow Jesus, ", I felt kind of sick to my stomach. It's not the Jesus part. Honest. It's the sheep part. What the ? Aren't we supposed to teach kids they just want to BE THEMSELVES, not that they just want to follow blindly along? I just have a problem with his having to repeat this as he goes up to receive his ticket on to the rest of his schooling career. A sheep is NOT what I want my son to be.

I was prepared to let this slide and just get through the next week (we have such dear friends there and it would be nice to have a closing ceremony and really I like letting things slide), until my kid started crying and saying he didn't want to go to school anymore because they've been practicing this processional along with numerous other "Jesus songs" every single day in the chapel and he was "tired" of baa'ing like a sheep. "I want to be myself," he said to me today. That was enough to get him a pass out of the graduation ceremony, and in fact, out of the next week of school. I'm not offering him up to rehearse or participate in this thing if he doesn't want to. Thus, it has become "Take My Kid to Work Week."

I did speak with the staff this morning. They respectfully heard my concerns and said they may make some changes. I appreciate that, but am also happy to obstain (it is absolutely their perogative as a christian preschool to do what they will on this issue but...), and my son and I very well may reassess our boycott of the proceedings if things turn around.

Baa.