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Can a Broke-Ass Mom find the Perfect Preschool?

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We are now knee-deep in a search for a preschool for our soon-to-be three-year-old son.  With every new day it becomes more and more apparent that he’s more than ready to make some friends of his own, and I think he’s ready to do this without me standing by his side.  But who knew that finding a preschool that agrees with our values would be so difficult?  Today, my mother told me “Nothing is going to be perfect.”  Of course, this is coming from the woman who told me “No one likes to work.”  Personally, I love my job as Broke-Ass Mom!

I’m not expecting perfect but I am expecting to find an affordable (By affordable I mean by Broke-Ass standards, not Park Avenue or Pacific Heights standards) preschool where my son can simply have fun.  I don’t need him to learn how to cut, hold a pencil correctly, or learn to spell by four.  On the flip side, I also don’t want to pay someone else to let me child watch TV or play video games, when we don’t let him do this at home. (Dude, I’m not kidding, I went to see a preschool today where in the past four months they had let the kids watch TV four separate times!  Sorry, but $10/hour isn’t worth that, much less $55/day.)

We still have five more preschools to see over the next few weeks, so I’m not giving up.  I know I can find an affordable, fun, play-based preschool with a morning program two or three days a week.  That’s all I want, is that so wrong?

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Jennifer White - Mommy No Bucks

Jennifer White - Mommy No Bucks

Jennifer has been a bit of a nomad having lived in seven different cities. Her life as a gypsy has settled down for the moment in San Francisco with her husband and two-year old son. Recently, she decided to throw caution to the wind, quit her job as an analyst to be a full-time mom while chasing her dreams (and the Pulitzer Prize). When she's not writing, she's aspiring to be a luddite (although blogging isn't helping), knitting the occasional hat, or running in the park with her son and his secondhand compost truck in tow.