Jess’s decision to “redshirt” her youngest children — let them stay in preschool for another year and delay their entry into kindergarten — did not come easily. She had all four of her children (eight, seven, and twin four-year-olds) in the span of three-and-a-half years, and wanted to keep her twins just two years behind her second oldest child. She liked the idea of keeping them together as a crew of some kind, protecting each other and sticking together. “From the beginning, I didn’t want to hold them back,” she says.
Jess’s stance changed when she went to a first grade parent-teacher conference for her 7-year-old. “Because he’s a year behind my first, he was doing everything my first would do. He was reading when he started kindergarten. He could color in the lines when he was three. Then, the teacher told me he was average. I’m pretty sure my jaw hit the floor. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? The child can read! He’s average!?’”