Politics and the Playground

I'm going to chalk this up to falling under the Health rock in the mental health section.  My major mission in life is to change the way motherhood is seen from the eyes of moms.  I curse Martha Stewart for her cute little ways of making the norm into things beyond necessary.  I'm all for decorating and baking when it gives you joy BUT when it takes over society as a competition to rival the Olympics, something has got to give.

I had to talk myself down last year from a bad morning and learned a great lesson that I have to relearn on a bi-weekly basis. So here's the scene:

It's morning and I'm running around in my usual morning rush trying to get everything done including dragging kids out of bed "AWWWW MOM!", getting them breakfast "If you don't eat it  in 10 minutes, it's going in the trash", getting them dressed, "You can wear this or this, which do you prefer? No, that one is not an option it's fleece and long sleeves and it's supposed to be 95 degrees today."  We are heading out the door right on time (I know because I have 4 different alarms for the different stages of the morning: mom up, kids up, done with breakfast time to get dressed, and the one that is sounding now that is the sound of a nuclear sub alarm WAH-WAH-WAH letting us know it's Go Time) and as we're out of the gate almost to the car I remember that today is walk-a-thon day!  There was a flyer or five sent home reminding moms to put sunblock on the kids, send a hat (normally against the rules), and a water bottle for this special fundraising day. Crap! I got none of the above but I'm not about to be late for school so my kid is just gonna have to get skin cancer (as if the sunblock will still be on and working after 5 hours of normal kid wear and tear including 3 recesses) and he's NOT going to die of dehydration. Remember when we only had the drinking fountain to drink from at school not thermo cooled filtered water carried in our licensed character back pack? Remember when we didn't have backpacks until our backs and shoulders were strong enough to carry them and we maybe carried home a workbook, a math textbook and loose paper in our Pee Chee folders? Plus I know darn well they have moms with spray bottles spraying down the kids and water bottles that they hand out.

Did you catch the poor planning of this event? I didn't until this year when I got my second chance at getting this walk-a-thon thing right. It's planned in mid-May in the central valley of California and takes place at the END of the school day.  I'm not kidding; it gets to be 95 degrees. But this does not cross my mind last year when it was my first year of being a mom of a school-goer. I wasn't strong enough yet to say, "Forget that! Why don't they do this extortion, I mean fundraiser, in the MORNING?"

As I pull into the school parking lot feeling like the most neglectful mom in the world, I see all of these parents carrying armfuls of flowers, balloons, and Starbucks coffee cups. Venti people, not grande (which is medium) or tall (which is their word for small) but fricken Venti because you know what today is besides the super-hot money extortion walk-a-thon? Well it's Teacher Appreciation Day of course! It's a new holiday they've come up with since we were in school where parents compete to bring the biggest and bestest show of appreciation for the poor people who have to teach our kids. 

I lost it. I give my son air kisses as he's climbing out of the car to the curb where the teacher watches to make sure he gets the 5 feet safely to the playground (times are different people!) and I slowly drive out of the parking lot with tears streaming down my face. I suck! My poor son, God gave him a mom with ADD who is in her 40s so she can't remember what she walked into a room for let alone the random changes in school schedules that seem to happen just often enough to no longer be special but just enough to mess up the regular routine of the things I already have a hard time remembering like PE on Tuesday for one kid but on Wednesday and Friday for the other kid with a Free PE thrown in on Thursdays, Library on Monday for one kid and Thursday for the other. Reading logs are due on Friday and Behavior Logs are due on Monday. Math homework is two things done and turned in everyday, Spelling is three things but due only on Friday, and the writing homework that is supposed to be weekly but only is assigned maybe 2-3 weeks out of the month is given on Monday but due on Friday.  The only reason I know all of this by heart is because we have 4 days left of school.  I will have to erase it all to make room for learning next year's routine because it will all be different.

What will these people think of my poor son? He will be out there dragging himself around the perimeter of the school with skin cancer dying from dehydration while the volunteer moms shake their heads and tisk-tisk-tisk saying, "That mom is soooooo bad.  She's letting her child die knowing darn well that no teacher in her right mind will save him because who wants to save a child whose mom doesn't even bother to bring a Venti Caramel Macchiato and a bouquet of homemade cake pops on Teacher Appreciation Day????"

And then it hit me! What was I worried about? My son's well-being? No! I know he is going to be just fine.  My son's teacher? No, I know darn well from my own experience that the best appreciation a parent can show a teacher is making sure that she is respected, that the student is learning what he's supposed to learn, getting his homework done, and for me to stay the heck out of her way of getting her job done. I got her a gift card for a massage at Christmas.  I sent her an email letting her know how impressed I was with what my son was showing me when he came home from school and that although we got the call that his name was finally picked for the local charter school, we turned it down because of how well our son was doing in HER class.  Do the other parents know any of this? No, and that's how it should be.

I was worried about what these other moms thought of ME. And that my dear readers is NOT mentally healthy.

So today as the moms were bringing their homemade cake pops and cupcakes that look like actual hamburgers for their kids to sell at Market Day, I felt a twinge of Martha Stewart envy. But my 42 year old brain remembered last year's lesson. It's not about the moms, it's not about me, it's about my children learning to become the best they can be and not worrying about what other people on the playground think of them.

I've got to keep my priorities straight and not get sidetracked by the politics of the playground or the parking lot as the case may be. I do not want to teach my children to judge themselves based on peer pressure therefore I need to not judge myself based on peer pressure.

Remind me of that tomorrow because last night I found out that the spirit day theme is "College Day."  I have no idea what my kid is supposed to wear for that. Who has child size college shirts around? I have my old college sweatshirt that is 10x too big and the forecast is 87 degrees. My husband said we can send the kids to school with Red Solo cups with their names on them written in Sharpie......