How my mother made school sweet and palatable

Going to school for the first time has always been a challenge in more recent times, especially for young parents with their first child or even for the rest of their brood. It may have been a matter of pulling a child from home to school when we were kids, as natural as parenting then. For us then, we were just naturally hauled into small “caton” lessons in the neighborhood just to get started with letters and their sounds. In the generation of the baby boomers, that’s us, a lot of thought and preparation has come into play. Nowadays these have morphed into levels of learning from kiddie schools to more structured “pre-schools” in preparation for the “big” school which formalized pre-school into kinder, prep and the grades in ascending gradations.

How much has changed? Many kids would still reflect the anxiety of their young parents, with much cajoling and tearful separations. There is no sure formula to allay the fear of parents much less their little ones or even their yayas. I could be in denial, but it was not a big issue for us with our own kids. I just did what my mother used as a ritual on these anticipated occasions. A sure-fire formula if you can take my word for it. On The First Day of School – I just recalled this lore retold from my mother’s lips, as I vaguely remember how it even happened to me.

This was how she related the process to me: The night before, she would gather all the sweet flowers in the garden, soaked in a basin of water, and left in the open air, to gather the early morning dew. We used to have a cool morning mist in the street where we lived. In the morning she would wash the child’s face with the fragrant water. And give the child “caramelo” (at breakfast) to sweeten the prospect of school. Mother must have done it many times as a ritual so that I remembered doing it to my own kids. Before then, I even wrote this as an essay for my Spanish class in college. I have forgotten exactly how I repeated my mother’s words in Spanish, about the sweetness of the flowers and the caramelo. It must have truly touched my teacher when she read it, as I imagined a tremor in her voice, and a glisten in her eyes. Again, I could have imagined it, anticipating a good rating.

Now, after years of formal learning and continued search for more, I can admit that I have enjoyed the positive benefit of that fanciful story!

Dedicated to the memory of my brother Mirardo Dato Hidalgo whose 50th death anniversary we observe today (November 10).