My nursery shame as a no-show mom

It was the one item in the diary marked "DO NOT MISS", scheduled for 10.30am on Thursday. What occasion merited such urgency? My children's graduation ceremony ... from nursery school.

Given that my parents did not make it to my university graduation, I was amazed to receive emails from other (more involved) parents advising me that this occasion was a special event, preceded by dinner at the school head's home two nights before, and everyone must dress up especially for it. DVDs of the five-year-olds receiving their certificates had to be ordered and pre-paid; there was much discussion of who would bring what food to the post-graduation party in Central Park.

Guilt immediately flooded my veins. In the past few months I have, as one mother put it to me nicely, been "MIA" (Missing in Action) from school. After the fiasco of getting them into kindergarten for next year was resolved, I had concentrated on my work instead of volunteering to chaperone school field trips or watch tap-dancing performances (a good thing as it turned out, as one child got "stage fright" while another was so overtired he just sat down on stage). So I felt that missing graduation would be a sin too far.

The pre-graduation dinner didn't go entirely without mishap. I was relieved to see there were name tabs because even though my children are in two of the four classes in the school, my non-intervention in their education might mean that no one would know who I was.

The problem, I found, as I hopefully handed round a plate of brownies, was that they all did: I'm known as the no-show mom. And the women wanted to reassure me how sweet and lively my children were, since they - and not me - had been their chaperones on field trips.

Yet despite feeling utterly ashamed, as my little cherubs processed out of the place on Thursday, I cried. I may be the school's token useless, no-show working mother, but the nurturing environment of this little school - and the back-up of all those kind non-working mothers - has more than made up for my absence.

"Remember, you have really great boys," one of the teachers said as she hugged me farewell. I was speechless with emotion. So next time someone says they cannot miss their child's graduation from nursery school, you will hear no mockery from me.

Vicky Ward is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.