RIGHT OF CENTER: SCHOOL DAYS AND PARENTING

Wednesday was one a day I will remember for a lifetime. No, I didn't win the lottery. My oldest child, Levi, started school.

Parents who have been through it understand, but I know non-parents are thinking, `Big deal.' But to think of a little guy, who has never been to day care or preschool and has never gone anywhere without his parents, boarding a school bus on his way to a classroom in a strange building with 21 other kids he has never met is quite an event -- for his parents, if not for Levi.

I'm a little ashamed that I didn't call Jackson school officials and warn them that the biggest class clown in the history of Stockton, Ill., schools now has the product of his gene pool entering their defenseless district. Instead, I will let Levi set his own course. Who knows? Maybe he will surprise me.

His kindergarten teacher, Ms. Diebold, seems a very sweet, capable lady. I only hope that she realizes what a thoughtful young man Levi really is. Yes, he has a streak of dictatorship, and he can be quite bossy. But I hope school will nurture his leadership qualities.

And yes, he is easily frustrated when a given task proves too difficult to do. But I hope school can groom his meticulousness, so that he emerges a conscientious and tenacious worker.

Levi also doesn't hesitate to lash out, sometimes physically, against a perceived threat, and he is quick to react when he is treated unfairly. I hope school will channel that energy and equip Levi to be a staunch defender of the defenseless and to stand against injustice.

Most importantly, I hope school can cultivate in Levi a love for language. I am convinced that children who don't love to read, won't write well. And children who can't read and write, won't learn. The historian Paul Johnson wrote in "Enemies of Society" that "those who treasure the meanings of words will treasure truth, and those who bend words to their purposes are very likely in pursuit of anti-social ones. The correct and honorable use of words is the first and natural credential of civilized status." I concur.

Of course, a 5-year-old kindergarten student doesn't think of such things. But he can be drawn into the world of books, where he can learn right and wrong, good and evil, life and love, without even trying. One of my earliest memories was when, as a 4-year-old at home, my brother Jon started kindergarten. As Jon learned to read, he taught me. When I started kindergarten, I not only was able to read "The Cat in the Hat," but I possessed a hunger to escape into the world of the imagination. It was a fascination I never lost, and although my reading today mostly consists of non-fiction and political periodicals, I still enjoy reading, as I did for the first time in fifth grade, the "Chronicles of Narnia" and other children's books.

I hope I will be the type of parent who reinforces the good things school evokes in Levi. But I also want to rear him so that he can resist the bad.

Is a 5-year-old's first day of school a big deal? Of course it is. It represents his first small step toward independence. At school, he will enjoy freedoms he doesn't have at home -- and the incumbent responsibility to choose right over wrong.

I know many parents who eagerly anticipate the day when their children are in school and out of their hair for a few hours each day. They see it as an eight-hour respite from parenthood. I disagree. For this parent, the real challenge is just beginning.

Jay Eastlick is news editor at the Southeast Missourian.