One last chance to check for a trace
Of breakfast crumbs on your face

Remember to exude confidence
Be yourself; don’t get tense

It’s stiffer competition than I’d bargained for
I don’t think I can take much more

My pulse is racing, my hands are clammy
What must it be like for the interviewee?

My panic is soothed by a warm embrace
And the smile on my 4-year old son’s face

“…The snack was good, the playground is great
There’s a water table and a hamster named Kate…”

Relieved and exhausted, I’ve just made it through
His first kindergarten, private school interview

Up early and dressed for success, it’s another busy day. There’s an early morning Spanish class and a late afternoon tennis lesson. When is the piano recital? Who is your lunch date with? Will there be time for a nap? Without an iPhone, it’s hard for you to keep track, but then again, you cannot read or write yet. Thank goodness that you are able to maintain your stress levels by humming a few bars of your favorite Mozart concerto (fresh in your mind after hearing it repeatedly while still in the womb). Welcome to the life of a preschooler.

Baby boomers may have been partly responsible for originating this phenomenon. Known for their competitive and goal-centric nature, they left nothing to chance and methodically plotted out their children’s lives. As with any faction, there are always varying levels of methodology, from those that implemented a more natural and laid-back approach to those that put the “hell” in helicopter parents (a term for parents that aggressively hover over every aspect of their child’s life).

And from those seeds that were planted and meticulously tended to, the millennial was created. Born between 1980 and 2000, they are also known as the Me Generation. They have an air of confidence about them and are sometimes blamed for being a bit too self-absorbed. Given the fact that they are the first generation to have so much technology at their fingertips, they are not entirely to blame. According to Forbes Magazine“…No generation has been as publicly reviled, praised, misunderstood and analyzed as the millennials. And, with good reason. By 2025, millennials will make up the majority of the workforce…”

We’ve created a generation that works hard, plays hard and is a powerful force to reckon with. Sure, maybe our tactics may have been a bit over the top, but by the time our preschoolers hit the college campus, they learned to tolerate our unrelenting attentiveness to every aspect of their lives. And, if they could tackle that, they could handle anything.