By Ann McGough

Childhood is, or should be a wonderful experience. I have nice memories from my own childhood. Days were spent playing on and around Auriga Street.

I checked in every few hours for a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. In the summertime, curfew was "went the street lights came on." I am sure my parents felt comfortable letting me play outside for long periods of time, because even if I was not in their direct line of vision, there were many other moms around who were sure to have their eyes on me.

From the looks of it, life on Auriga Street has not changed too much. But in most neighborhoods, on most streets, you do not see hordes of kids outside, just "playing." This may be due to a variety of factors. People are afraid of things like abductions, and traffic safety. And people are just not home as much as they used to be. Everyone is busy on the move, coming and going from a myriad of "organized" activities.

When I was growing up, I do not think I ever went on a play date. If I wanted a friend, I walked out the door and rang any number of doorbells until I found someone who wanted to play "hide-and-go-seek" with me. Then there were the times when we would go to a friend of my mother's house. The moms drank tea and chatted while the kids played. The visit did not have a "set" start and end time. We all just hung around together until it was suppertime or enough of the kids started to lose it.

Now everything is so structured. I will admit, I am a big culprit of this. When my daughter was six-months old, we joined a Water Babies class. It was a great experience for both of us, and to this day Ellen still swims regularly and loves the water. When she was about 10 months old, I signed us up for a "French for Tots" class. I saw a program that explained how babies are sponges and that they can learn a foreign language just as easily as they can learn English. Three-hundred dollars later, I discovered that this was probably the case if the people at home spoke the foreign language on a regular basis, but my daughter was not not going to become fluent when the only French Mom and Dad know is related to foods that are probably not French in origin, anyway.

So, we dropped out of French class. And aside from an occasional family music class, our days were free to be spent at the park, the zoo, or home taking care of new babies. But when Ellen turned three, I felt a little pressure to get her involved in something "outside" of the home. I was not ready to enroll her in a formal nursery school program, so we decided on an athletic-based enrichment program for a few hours a week.

But, it seemed that once she was involved in one organized activity and we were interacting more with other families, there was some pressure to sign up for other things. "Soccer sign-up is Friday." "Have you signed up for Learn to Skate yet?" "Is she going to do Ballet or Irish Step?"

While I enjoyed our free time to fool around with play dough and make chocolate chip cookies, I didn't want my daughter to be an under-achiever because I didn't feel like getting everyone up and out for an early Saturday morning Irish step class.

We signed up for Irish step, bought the uniform, and the $40 shoes, and six weeks into it, Ellen announced, "I don't like Irish Step anymore!" My husband suggested that I bring her anyway. I resolved that a three-year old, should not only not be forced into going to dancing lessons, but probably should not have been there in the first place.

The moral of my story is that we should not rush our kids through childhood. Although we are bombarded with messages about organized kids' gyms, violin lessons for two year olds, and five-year old golf-pros (and all of that is great), we should not underestimate the power of lying down on the floor with our kids and making shadow animals on the wall. All too soon, they won't want to be with us anymore.

These days, I am often asked about school. Not that long ago, kids went to kindergarten for a couple of hours per day and did not start full days until first grade. Ellen will be four years old in August, which means she will be eligible to go to school, full-time, in September(at a parochial school; there are very few public KI programs in the city).

"She's ready!" people tell me. My little girl may very well be. But I , on the other hand, am not. There are some wonderful KI programs around Dorchester. The kids color, paint, make crafts, read, nap, play, practice letter and number recognition, and socialize. And these are wonderful things for kids to do from 8:10-2:15 every day.

But, if you are having anxiety about sending your wee one off for 30 hours per week, you are not alone. If your child does not start school full-time until they are five or six, they are not destined for academic failure. In fact, many towns with very strong public school systems, such as Needham and Concord, only offer half-day kindergarten programs.

So do your research, and whatever you and your children do, make sure it's right for your family and not what someone else says you should do. We only go this way once.