Oldie but Goodie -- Steel Yourself

Don’t get me wrong: I love my kids’ teachers. They do a job that is invaluable, incredible and underpaid. I know this, because after 45 minutes stepping in for one, you couldn’t pay me enough money to stay for the rest of the day.

But at this time of year, when all parents everywhere stop to celebrate and honor the end of the school year and the beloved teachers who guided their kids through it, their kids who are moving up and crossing over, I have to say: I am so over it.

Maybe I sound bitter and not so motherly-sweet either, but I know I am not the only one for whom the end of the school year scramble begins to get a little too much. Even the most devoted -- the volunteer-for-everything parents -- start to emulate children, and, well, whine. Truth be told, I do it too.

It is hard to find the love and joy in between the field trips and the field days, the luncheons, the celebrations, the Transitional Kindergarten graduations, the tournaments, picnics, recitals, and all the demands, though ever so polite, for cash, for service, for cupcakes. I have literally felt at times like I might bake my fingers to the bone.

I start thinking for the first time all year, maybe for the first time ever: for crying out loud, it’s just 1st grade, it’s just pre-school. All of the things that meant so much to me all school year long – do your homework, read more books, be diligent, a good citizen, and practice will make perfect – are thrown out the window. These are babies, I tell myself now, just little kids who will never remember any of this. Let it slide, I think; does it really matter? I am too busy honestly to care: I have a crate of cupcakes to make.

Of course I am proud of my daughters who have together grown 9 inches in a year, mastered fractions and friend making and story telling, but come on now, there will be better accomplishments in life then leaving these things behind. And I am tired and broke from all these donations and ready to move on.

My friend, our room parent, she calls to confirm the juice boxes I signed up for. She is exasperated, exhausted, and not ashamed to say it. Her mother has reported from New York that there has been a recent rise in traffic accidents. They’re all minor, her mother says, thank God, and they’re all moms behind the wheel.

We agree, it could happen: everyone is rushing around, screeching between guilty responsibility and annual obligations and so – stop sign? What stop sign?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we parents, and child care givers, and teachers realized all of this hoopla is way, way too much? Our children are valuable and their accomplishments are real but not every one need be rewarded with a party. Good parents teach and tell their kids this truth when they can; good teachers do it every day.

I’d rather take all the hard work and whatever money is spent in year end parties and gifts and roll it up into a state-wide trust fund for teachers, a never-ending party of universal support for the women and men who do everyday what most parents can’t. We love our teachers, but do they honestly need to monitor another party or plant somewhere another hydrangea?

Here’s what I remember from 1st grade: my teacher’s name -- I adored her and so did my mother. I remember a couple books I learned to really read and thus love and still do. I remember my playground friends, and then, when first grade ended, I remember the bright light of summer welcoming me to my back yard and the beach nearby. If there were cupcakes and parties and celebrations my mom slaved over, they are gone to me now.

I loved summer then, but I really love it now. Though it will mean for me a few months of three kids against one weary mom, I say bring it on! When the last glorious bell of the school day rings, it will mean for me that all the parties and the picnics and the extreme and somewhat unrealistic importance we put on these last days will at last, at last come to an end.

Maybe after the break, my mood will change. But more likely, I will forget all this end-of-the-year craziness and be ready and willing to repeat it all again next year.