The first time I overheard a conversation about preschool I was surprised. I stayed quiet, for once, as the playgroup moms discussed with great conviction the pros and cons of the many options for our toddlers. I had thought choosing a school was easy as finding the closest place to home, when seemingly it was more about starting them on a path which would guide them academically through the rest of their lives. It turns out preschool is no longer about eating paste and cutting up multi-colored construction paper with dull scissors. Apparently it was about making a choice which could warp my child's future forever.

I thought all preschools were more or less the same, but according to the playgroup moms, it was much more complicated. Since they all had older children, I thought I should listen to their knowledge. It seemed a lot of the experiences they had, bad or good, had a lot to do with the personality of their child: some needed structure while others needing loosening up; others needed attention in a certain area while some had special areas that needed overlooking. I wondered if what our children needed was to be left alone so they would be forced to adapt.

I couldn't help but think the conversation we were having was a middle class thing. Some children do have special needs, and why not pay a bundle for a great school if it's affordable, but is not having complete control over the situation so bad? My mom sent me to the nuns. We weren't even Catholic; it was free. There aren't a whole lot of choices when your budget is nothing. I don't remember the nuns, I switched to public school for kindergarten, but my mom said I loved it.

From the sound of things, the norm for preschool seemed to be paying something close to what daycare was already costing me, which really irked me. I am happy to pay for a worthwhile education for my kids, but the average cost of daycare felt uncomfortably close to being screwed. Working full time, the flexibility was not there for me to take advantage of an inexpensive co-op, and the city sponsored daycare offered meager hours.

When looking for daycare when my oldest daughter was three months old, I contacted a school in my neighborhood which told me they did not do infant care, but thank goodness I called because their preschool waiting list was three years. Three years! My newborn was placed on the waiting list for a prestigious school as if we were Manhattanites looking into prep school. As I researched further, I found most places had quite a wait going despite the cost or style, and she was on three lists by six months old.

I had assumed preschool was basically a more sophisticated version of daycare. In looking for daycare, my requirements were more along the lines of is it clean, are the teachers psycho killers, and can I afford this? It turns out preschools have a number of teaching styles, environments, and belief systems, some vehemently opposed to each other. They required I make a decision about my child's academic future beyond safety, cleanliness and feeding, and declare my stance in the battle of warring educational styles while I was at it.

Amongst the school choices were Montessori, Waldorf, religious-based, co-op, swanky private, foreign language-based, and what appeared to be a few cults. As far as disciplinary style, there's the hands off, let them pummel each other approach; strict discipline with the rarely seen these days spankings; and the favored "time out" approach followed by a stern talking to. Some schools offered six hours a week for $400 a month. Others were half the price for twice as many hours. I couldn't help wonder if the expensive schools were that much better, or if they were counting on us all being big suckers.

An old boss of mine sent his son to an extremely expensive private school. He would never consider anything but the "best," being a rich politician, but was disturbed by the interview process his son had been through. He said the principal came to get his son from the waiting room at the school, and neither parent was allowed to accompany him to the principal's office. His son was scared, since he had never met the man, and started crying when led away from his parents. In the interview notes he read later, my boss said it was considered a negative that "the boy cried for his mother." His son was four years old.

A friend called the other day and said she and her family were going to tour a Waldorf school and invited us to come along. The property the school was on was one of the most beautiful I'd ever seen. There was a garden and animals, a winding river, green grass and oak trees. The classrooms were like fantasy tree houses filled with soft fabrics. It was a utopia and I was feeling real wary of it by the time we'd been there an hour. Having been raised by hippies, I had flashbacks to the naked commune of my childhood summers. I am a liberal democrat, but I am a cynic, too. My husband loved the place, which surprised me. He can be a worse cynic than me, but I think he wished he'd known of a place like the Waldorf school when he was growing up.

After watching the National Spelling Bee I had dreams of home schooling. I was caught up in the romantic notions of teaching my child the mysteries of our universe without the crazy teacher (we've all had one) or the catty cliques of the playground. All the disturbing whitewashing of history and pigeonholing of scholastic aptitude tests would be avoided. I quickly dropped the notion when I realized I look so forward to having time to myself someday, and my lopsided brain would likely produce another library geek who can hardly add.

My neighbors are Unschoolers, which goes beyond the traditional home schooling and takes on all formalized schooling as unacceptable. The thinking behind Unschooling, as it appears on the website unschooling.com, is expressed in a quote by Anne Sullivan, teacher of Helen Keller: "I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experience."

Is it me, or do all these scenarios seem so serious for a child that still believes Elmo is a real person? Without undermining the importance of a good education, I have a hard time believing this decision at this age will be an irreparable scar that will result in their living under a bridge some day.

My friends and neighbors, like most parents, are very passionate about their beliefs, so I kept my mouth shut and worried to myself. Is my daughter showing a natural propensity yet towards anything but sand eating? Is my toddler ready to take on the classics? Should I start with the flash cards, or let nature take its course and stick with potty training?

With all this swirling around in my head I found a sense of calm. I realized the longer I am a parent, the less I listen to others or read books on how to parent. Everyone finds their pace when put into a situation they have to participate in, and I've started finding mine. I'm a let-nature-take-its course mom. I still have grand plans for how I want their schooling to go, but I imagine between survival and reality these plans will be modified. I feel secure as I can knowing the modifications may not always be to my liking, because they are individuals. If I can't control my own life, what makes me think I can completely control theirs? In the end, I listened to a mom in my neighborhood whom I respect and whose kids I like and sent my daughter to the same school she uses. It also happens to be the closest to my house.