It was week one of Kindergarten, parents had been invited in to the school for an information evening with their respective teachers. We entered the classroom, all dressed in our daily attire, a mixture of business suits, exercise wear and uniforms. Many of us were new to full day school and you could tell; we were the ones taking notes while asking detailed questions about exactly which type of drink bottle was required.
Our dignity disappeared the minute we sat down. With our knees up around our chin and our bottoms precariously perched on the edge of the miniature chairs, it was hard to take anyone seriously. Except the teacher, she had her own chair, the chair of power. She ran through a few house rules. Bags go here, shoes here, coats are hung here, the red folder goes home on Wednesday, the blue on Thursday, Art is on Friday. There were rules for snacks, rules for lunch, and suggestions were made about healthy alternatives. We were told if sugar was listed in the first five ingredients of a product, it would be sent straight home. I began to break out in a sweat thinking of anything in our pantry that may have deemed me an unworthy mother. “You should be considering hummus, carrots and cucumbers rather than anything in a wrapper”. No-one disagreed, in fact, no-one said a word – we were all suddenly back at school and doing as we were told.
Having just left Libya where I had been living under a dictatorship, it occurred to me that there seemed to be a lot more rules in Kindergarten than Tripoli. Gadaffi could have learnt a few things in this room.
“We will have a number of events throughout the year – it’s always nice if parents can come along”. I nodded along, I had plans of getting involved with the school, it was a great way for someone new in town to make a few friends. A women’s voice came from behind me “Umm, will we have much notice when it comes to events, what sort of lead up can you give us?”
The teachers eyes darted in the direction behind me, did we have a dissident amongst us “usually we give a few weeks notice – why?” I immediately felt uncomfortable for the mother, it was obvious by the teacher’s tone that she was going to need a very good reason for her question.
“I’m an obstetrician, getting away from the hospital can sometimes be challenging”
“Oh – I see, well maybe you’d like to come along one day and speak to the children about your career, we love to have the parents come and discuss what they do”.
And in that moment, that mother was excused from every field trip, class party and bring a plate of veggies event throughout the year. The rest of us though, we were still fair game. It appeared that if we weren’t removing babies from people’s vaginas, we were still required to front up with a fruit platter and six pack of juice.
It’s been a busy week at school. Poetry readings, art displays and kindergarten concerts have meant that G has joined me and hundreds of others at the school, with cameras at the ready. This morning as G flicked through his calendar he realized he’d doubled up, he had a meeting he didn’t think he could move and was going to miss the choir concert.
I broke the news that he may not be there to the second little traveler thinking she’d be understanding – not so much. There were tears, blame, and when I reminded her that I would be there, she said “but you’re always there!”
Please feel free to address me as Chopped Liver.
I can’t remember my father being at school, not once, and not because he didn’t come, but because he wasn’t asked to. With two working parents it was always understood that we said goodbye in the morning and hello again in the afternoon. If my mother arrived at school to help coach netball, or deliver chocolate crackles for the fete, it was usually after 3.30. Amazingly, we managed to get through the day without them.
I have watched many parents squirm while they’ve explained their impending absence to teachers and fellow parents. Pilots and nurses rearrange schedules, and anyone paid on an hourly rate will go to extreme measures to not miss the forty five minute music concert, in which their child will play a recorder for approximately two of those minutes. No-one wants their child to be the one without a parent. So why do we make it so hard? As a working parent you cannot go to everything, and if you can, please feel free to share your secret now, because I definitely couldn’t when I was working full time.
An hour ago, G rang to confirm the time of the concert “have to be quick as I’ve got someone with me, I think I can make it – can’t talk, see you there”.
I can’t wait to see her face when she see’s him.
I just hope she remembers this, and when he can’t make it to the next event, she understands that he just can’t come to everything. What do you think?
Is there someone out there who has made it to every field trip, poetry reading, winter festival or science exhibition?
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I know exactly where you’re coming from. My eldest started school this year and I try to go to most things, but I always have the two little ones with me, which isn’t always easy. I drew the line at helping at the canteen though. Tomorrow is her first athletics carnival and she’s excited to show me how she can play tunnel ball. She is pretty understanding though, I must say, and as long either my husband or myself are there, she is happy.
Give Gareth a cheer for me tomorrow at the carnival because I’ll be in the hospital again and the distance is too far to manage on a coffee break this time!!!
Oh god yes, the class party is so much more fun when you have stop and feed a baby or change a toddlers nappy/diaper. I remember those days well.
Gina, I was so wrapped up in keeping Miss L and Miss A out of the wind that I didn’t even see Gar ALL DAY. I looked out for him at one point when I didn’t have both crying but, couldn’t see him. Luckily I caught the end of Miss E’s 100m race in which she came 3rd.
I’m so glad I no longer have to breastfeed at school!
Ugh I feel your pain but laughed out loud. My 19 year old daughter recently told me that she was still upset about the fact I didn’t take her to her first day of high school. The same school she had been at for three years. Wearily I pointed out that we had two other children starting school that day – one of them for the first time EVER. No matter I chose him that day. I went to every hockey game, every academic awards ceremony, every concert, every speech, every other thing but missing her first day of high school is what she remembers. Motherhood ROCKS!
Giggling in Doha.
Oh I hear you! I’m a stay at home Mum and my first boy started school this year. So far I’ve helped in the classroom once a week (bring the 3yo and 3 month old too). I’ve picked up and dropped off each am and pm and chatted with the other parents and the teacher.
My best friend lives in another state and we hadn’t seen each other for 18 months. We had each had our third baby and felt it time to introduce us all to each other. So I arranged one night in Melbourne, taking the baby and leaving hubby to look after the older two for ONE NIGHT on a Friday. Wouldn’t you know that the day I choose to be away from the family for the WHOLE YEAR is the Mothers Day afternoon tea at school. Oh the guilt! But why the guilt? I was home for the actual Mothers Day of course but I still felt the need to email the teacher, tell the other Mums, explain to my son (he was fine) etc…….. The guilt. It never ends, does it!
School events are completely infuriating. They need to get their acts together and only have one event per child per year that requests parent involvement. If I wanted to be more involved, I’d home school. I think I’d be a great dictator.
“If I wanted to be more involved, I’d home school”. Too funny. FUNNY!
In the early years of school, my kids never were able to have either my wife or myself at any daytime events that took place at school. My wife was/is a teacher and I worked full time as well. Even my parents were still teaching at the time and could not fill in for us.
Then, things changed. We moved, the children changed schools, and I went to work for myself – from home. My son was now in fifth grade, and my daughter was in seventh. Soon I found that my son was volunteering me for school events and I was the father among the mothers on school trips, and daytime performances. To be honest, I loved it! (Yes, I got to meet a lot of moms in those days.)
My involvement continued through the time they left for college, and one day when they were both in HS – and I was president of their marching band which was about to leave on a week long trip – my son jokingly (I hope) said to me, “I can’t even go to school to get away from you!”
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world … but my wife did. (She retires in 5 weeks – my kids are both grown and with families of their own, so she plans on being there during the day for the grandtwins when they start pre-school this summer.)
I think if we’ve missed it we probably appreciate it more. When I went back to work full time I was out of town every Tuesday and invariably it would be Tuesday that the event would happen. When I finished work I signed up for everything because I’d missed not being there. I was class Mum, the volunteer etc… I’m two and half years in now and the novelty has definitely worn off a little. The children suggested I might like to get a job at the school so I could eat lunch with them every day, I noticed Ms Grade 6 wasn’t as enthusiastic as everyone else 🙂
When my kids had both graduated high school and had left for college, I found myself a little lost – looking for something to do. No more district band or marching band activities. While I didn’t get a job at the school – I still did have a job – I did manage to get myself invited to play in the pit of the yearly school musical. 🙂
Wow. When I was at school parents came to an annual parents’ evening, the Christmas carol concert and speech day at the end of the year. That was it!
That’s how I remember it as well – and everything was after hours.
I’ve done it both ways: as a SAHM, I attended virtually everything; when I went back to work, well, sometimes I wasn’t there. Dad’s schedule was always much tighter, although he did step up more often after I went back to work (an advantage, in my book.) My children knew they were loved and that we supported them, but I don’t think it hurt them to occasionally realize that the the sun did not *completely* revolve around them. At 18 and 15, they seem to be fairly well adjusted; I don’t think the occasional miss did any lasting damage.
It’s out of hand, is all. It wasn’t like this when I grew up, even in a time and place when there was usually only one parent working a paying job. Mothers took turns volunteering to head field trips, and there was maybe 2 assemblies a year, tops.
And don’t even talk to me about the preschool scenario. Hello? We send the little tykes to preschool to get a break from them, not to participate in the experience.
And when did mandatory grandparent attendance get thrown in? I’ve dealt with really hostile school secretaries who can’t give proper driving directons down to chairs I could not rise up from. Stairs I cannot climb easily. And on. I told my grandchildren, This is really tough on grandma. Can you just go and then tell me about it? Sure, grandma! So now only the school secretaries are offended.
I’m a nurse and was working the day my sons primary school was doing their mothers day liturgy. The guilt! I persuaded my colleagues to let me leave the hospital for my 20min coffee break and spent 5 mins driving to school, 2 mins parking, 2 mins running up a hill from the bus bay just to stand at the back of the church for 6mins while the teachers battled with the overhead projector which failed to start, waved at my son wildly and felt elation as he grinned back, declined the offer of a seat as it was time to run back down the hill to my car and get back on the ward within my 20min deadline. I was sweaty and my blood pressure was sky high but I had done it! I’d managed to make my son think I was there watching him and that to me is the point of being a mum! Now pour me a large glass of wine!
OMG yes! I’ve done exactly the same thing. Raced through the doors just to wave and make eye contact only to duck out and return to the office at lightening speed. Just think of how many mothers are out there on a daily basis doing the same thing 🙂
My daughter bought home a beautifully detailed card inviting her father to their school open day. I said where is my invitation? She looked at me and said “we can only invite one of you (bollocks)”. I said what if I want to come? She said oh you always are there. I was dismissed.
Due to the nature of her fathers work, he does get to most things, but usually is only there for the last half hour, she doesn’t care, she just sees him and as far as she’s concerned, he was there all night. I’m the one doing the bags, the lunches, the nagging about costumes, I’m the one making the biscuits – you get the drift.
She adores her father, and though sometimes I’d like to be the one who turns up with five minutes to go, rather than sit through two hours of other peoples children doing stuff, I’m pleased that he’s her knight in shining armor. Matpybe one day shell realize how much her mother did behind the scenes for her.
Probably won’t happen until she’s a mother herself though.
You should have seen my daughters face when she saw her father in the crowd. His white horse was definitely parked in the school car park in her eyes 🙂
Hideous typos, sorry…stupid iPad keyboard
Being the single mother of two children, it was impossible to make it to every performance. I just chose one thing per quarter for each child to attend. Otherwise, we might not have eaten. 🙂
Rebecca
I was a SAHM of an only child so I got to go to everything. My favorite was helping supervise the weekly after-school outing to a local roller skating rink. Our daughter loved to skate and so did I plus I got to go for free. Score!
Laughed out loud at your description of The Kindergarten Talk. You nailed it!
My struggles aren’t with being there for the 15 minutes of fame of one of our kids. What sends me over the edge is the expectation that as a SAHM I run a bakery out of my kitchen and possess a driver’s license with a Chauffeur/Courier designation. I help out with these things when I can. But I refuse to miss my appointment, my exercise class (how selfish!), or friend’s birthday lunch, all of which I knew about long in advance of the three minutes’ notice I received for the bake sale or class party. Is this going to win me any “Volunteer of the Year” nominations? Probably not. Do my kids mind? Definitely not.
I really enjoyed reading this post, I am a year away from my youngest of three graduating and can truly say you are not alone in this. As a working mother I have tried to attend as much as possible when the school asked, this being said the kids take our attendance for granted because we are the mom. My husband on the other hand has attended exactly two school events for my daughters that are done school and that has been thier grade 12 graduation ceremonies. He even had to leave halfway through one of the ceremonies as he was called away to go fight fire during the the Slave Lake Wildfires.
One of my daughters friends made the commnent when she was intorduced to him “I was beginning to think you were like snuffleupagus, I guess you do exist.” His job away made it impossible for him to come to anything but the girls understood this.
With that being said, we do what we can , when we can, and that is what is important.