Do I Need this Stress ?

Last week family member/care provider (FMCP), in our discussion about the twins' day, mentioned a free preschool in the area.

"Khalil, goes and he just loves it, "she says. Khalil is her rambunctious nephew about a year younger than B.

"Huh", I say "You'll have to find out the name for me and I'll see if I can dig up more information."

Now at this point I'm already about to fall on the floor in to a puddle of guilt. Am I doing my children a disservice by not having them in preschool ?

Actually, last September the twins started being cared for by my mother in my home and going to a wonderful little affordable preschool nearby two days a week.

It was a great little arrangement, until my mother became ill and found out she would need several medical treatments over the coming months. As FMCP lives quite a ways from me I knew it would be unreasonable to ask her to drive them to preschool for two hours a day two days a week. So I withdrew them.

Remembering all this I thought, dammit I don't need to feel guilty. They're only 3 and this is preschool not college. Besides, right now the focus should be on mom getting healthy.

Then it happened again this morning. As I dropped the twins off this morning, FMCP says "Oh the name of that school is You gotta have your kids here or you're a horrible mother preschool (well thats what I heard anyway) and they're enrolling new students now"

I said " Great, when I get to work I'll Google it and see what additional information I can find. "

She continued on to say "I saw a news story recently that said kids that don't go to preschool wind up with social problems."

WTF!? What kind of news was she watching ? While I think putting one's child in preschool can do wonders in terms of providing an early excitement for learning and provide the necessary socialization that some kids desperately need I do not subscribe to the theory that not putting children in preschool leads to social problems.

Of course rather than telling her how steeped in bullshit that news report was, I lamely said " yes , when they were in school they loved it and I'd like to have them return in the fall"

Did my kids have social problems ? Was this something I needed to worry about? I didnt' think so. B & J are well adjusted, bright 3 1/2 year olds that have plenty of play dates and opportunities to interact with other children.

Do I need this stress ?

I quickly high tailed it out of there before my head exploded.

So I tried hard to let go of all these emotions swimming around in my head on the drive to work.

Everything will be fine right? In several years, I'll laugh about this ,right ? They'll be straight A, well adjusted, popular kids right?
Of course - I should just stop worrying.

Hmmm...so tell me shall I Google social sucess of preschoolers vs children not in preschool or just straight out go to the origination of juvenile delinquents ?