Parents’ Manhattan Kindergarten Application Essay

Please use this space to tell us what you would like us to know about your child. Your insight is important to us and very much appreciated.

How do we sum up our daughter in a brief essay? Toile entered this world four years ago, vaginally, absorbing the good microbes that allow her to be a nut-lover and not one of those children who has to go everywhere with an EpiPen. Our doula Salome said she had never witnessed “such a supple birth.” Our labor playlist featured Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” which we believe accounts for Toile’s near-perfect pitch as well as her extremely powerful diaphragm.

Every day with Toile is full of a thousand questions: “What’s the difference between Parma ham and prosciutto?” “Can I have a Hamilton birthday party?” “Mom, why did you go to PureBarre and Physique 57 today?” During her child-led, unstructured playtime on our drives to the Hamptons, she loves to ask our driver Hasaan all about how he rides his camels. He always tells her that not all people from Egypt ride camels and that he has lived in the United States for 27 years. It’s become a sweet little inside joke between them.

Our family celebrates diversity. Toile is just as happy to go to Forest School with Ivan, the son of that guy who owns the Nets as she is to play No Stress Chess with Saanvi, the daughter of a partner at McKinsey. For Halloween, she dressed as a fencer in a hijab! Our housekeeper is from Ecuador, and our dog groomer is some kind of mix. Arvin, the man who comes to blow out my hair every three days, is gay. Toile simply doesn’t see color or gayness.

Toile is generous. She loves giving donations to Raymond, our family Rolfer, who has a daughter about Toile’s age. “Gently used!” she exclaims, with the gratified gleam of a future philanthropist in her eye, as she thrusts a Citarella bag full of Jacadi at him. When we leave a restaurant, she always offers my leftover salad with dressing on the side to homeless people. At the nail salon, she tips 30%. At age 3.8, she spearheaded a fundraising auction for her nursery school, L’Ecole des Enfants des Parvenues and raised $42,000 by enrolling all the kids to get their parents to agree to a “Country Home Swap.” Our family had a fascinating time staying in the Poconos house of her little friend Aviva. We learned there’s a slippery slope from “rustic” to “ramshackle” (linoleum?!), but it gave us the chance to teach Toile, “À chacun son gout.” Or, as we like to say, “Not everyone’s country house has a mud room!”

Talk about innovative. Although we do not partake in the Jewish faith, Toile has created her own line of bespoke kippot on Etsy, using the locks of her little Jewish boy friends after their Upsherin ceremonies. She takes the fine hair that the boys’ mothers finally cut when they turn three and turns it into a paintbrush. Then she paints kippot in bright colors. Her work is quite fauvist! She calls her line “Up, Upsherin And Away,” demonstrating her ingenious skills at word play.

When we curated Toile through preimplantation genetic diagnosis, we knew we were getting an XX with overall chromosomal normalcy, but we could have never have predetermined her resilience! Toile has managed to embrace no fewer than seven nannies in four years, each of whom we consider part of our family until Toile accidentally calls one “Mommy.” When the nannies go back to the agency, our daughter never cries, she only asks to see Hamilton again. One of her favorite sayings is, “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again!” which is something she recently said to me when she found me sitting in my boudoir, staring at my framed Master in Public Policy degree, weeping.

Not least, it is with great pride that we report our daughter is already an activist. During our most recent safari in Kenya this past summer, Toile was made aware of the scourge of Female Genital Mutilation. I’m not sure why our room maid told her about it, and I’m still not sure if Toile understands what a clitoris is or does (I’m not sure her father does either, haha!), but Toile did tell her classmates about it at her Show & Share, using the African fertility doll we brought home. She left her teachers speechless with her maturity and consciousness-raising.

We love our daughter beyond the allotted word count for this essay. I often tell her she’s my reason for living, which is why I quit my job at a high-profile think tank in order to breastfeed her on demand. We have every confidence that she will self-wean before she starts kindergarten next fall.