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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Who was Carolyn Keene?
An interview with Mildred Wirt Benson, the original ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew mystery novels.
By Amy Benfer
[10/08/99]

Fathers, sons and football
I spent my NFL career struggling to escape the long arm of my judgmental father -- and the coaches who took his place. Was I fated to subject my sons to the same treatment?
By Pat Toomay
[10/08/99]

What would Nancy do?
The sleuth of my mother's youth reveals life's mysteries.
By Amy Benfer
[10/07/99]

Perky fellows in a gay-looking speedwagon: The Hardy Boys return
At last, a revival of unexpurgated Frank and Joe.
By Steve Burgess
[10/07/99]

She wins bread, he loafs
Raised to be helpless, partial to pipe dreams, this dad sings the praises of the working wife.
By Rob Ryder
[10/06/99]

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"They do this to be healthy," says Sam. He says it's fun. I learn that it is called "tempering," a practice designed to make children become "strong as steel" to survive the long, cold Russian winters in good health. Once again my husband and I question our decision to put our very American, New York-born little boy into a Russian kindergarten -- cold turkey.

We moved to Moscow early in 1997 from New York City. My husband, then a reporter for the Associated Press, had taken a job as a Moscow correspondent. Our time there, we felt certain, would be wonderful for Sam and his 16-month-old brother. We thought a second language would be a huge gift, especially as we struggled mightily to learn enough Russian to buy food once we got there. And even if we could have afforded the $10,000 it would cost for Sam to go to the American school in Moscow, we figured Russian school would be a great opportunity for our son.

Also, to be honest, I was quite happy to escape the pressure of choosing a school in New York. When Sam was barely 3, people began asking whether we'd applied to nursery schools, taken exams, made the big decision. Strangers in restaurants and parks would ask where he was going to go to school. There were good schools and other schools, schools that did not lead to Yale but to a destiny too awful to contemplate.

Our choice took us out of competition. But it didn't take away the anxiety. We decided to send Sam to a school where neither he nor we could speak more than a few words to the teachers, a place where we would know only what our 5-year-old son chose to tell us about his days.

We chose Rodnik, kindergarten No. 1671, for a couple of reasons. A Russian friend had called the Moscow education department and gotten a recommendation. And in walks around the neighborhood, I had found it to be the only school without broken glass in the playground and crumbling exteriors. It turned out that two other American families and one Russian-American family also chose it. Thank God, I thought: solidarity.

When my husband and I visited Rodnik, we were still naive enough to ask what sort of curriculum was used. At first, Nadyezhda Mikhailovna, the imperious director, could not understand the question. Finally, she gave us a withering look and replied, as if to simpletons, "The National Curriculum, of course."

Having not a clue what that might be but feeling that the woman who would be his teacher was warm and friendly, we signed Sam up. And so on that Sept. 1 he left home clutching a bouquet of flowers, which every schoolchild in Russia brings to the teacher on opening day. (No surprise that a country with a National Curriculum also has a nationwide first day of school. It also turned out to be the only day we had the services of a crossing guard on our super-busy street.)

Rodnik is a square, three-story building in the Krilatskoe Hills of western Moscow. The playground is appallingly dilapidated (though normal for Moscow), and the building is at home among the surrounding, equally dilapidated Brezhnev-era high-rises. Inside it's charming: mosaics and photos of children on the walls, pint-size painted wooden furniture, a small swimming pool and rooms for music and gym. Sam's group had a changing room with big bulletin boards to show off their schoolwork; a room for work, play and meals; and a sleeping room with a half-dozen bunk beds.

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