This summer my kid tried out a new sport (at an informal, walk-on type of camp) and liked it. We were told the beginning team was less of a financial commitment than the more elite teams, and no try-outs were required. The team would practice in a town close to us; the camp was about a 45-minute drive away.
Email from me to coach: My child enjoyed the camp and wants to join the team. Could you give me the contact info for the parent rep so I can make the arrangements?
Email from coach to me, several hours later: That’s great! Please call me at …
Me (thinking): sigh … I have to pick up the phone?
The next day, dial. Exchange pleasantries.
Coach: OK, I’ll email you back with the parent rep’s email address!
Me (thinking): You’ve got to be kidding me.
I dutifully email the parent rep.
Me: My child enjoyed the camp and wants to join the team. Could you send me the paperwork (my address is below) and let me know where to send my payment?
Parent rep reply: That’s great! Please call me at …
Me: *headdesk*
When I called the parent rep, I learned that the team doesn’t have enough players to be eligible for competitions. BUT, I can enroll the kid in a “class” which would:
cost the same
meet in the faraway venue at 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings
require us to join a club, which in turn would require paying dues and performing mandatory “volunteer” hours
allow the kid to learn some of the skills of the sport or risk “falling more and more behind” (seriously, she said it)
My husband thinks this is a no-brainer. No team. Enroll in a local, group lesson in a similar sport instead, saving money and sparing a good deal of inconvenience. Next spring, let the kid try out for the team and hope for the best. I’m inclined to agree, since the squeeze I got from the parent rep was uncomfortable (not to mention the air of bait-and-switch around this entire experience; e.g., the summer camp was originally billed as free, and then suddenly turned out to cost $10/hour).
But the kid really likes the sport, and I get the sense that holding your nose and dealing with this kind of stuff is common in youth sports. We could postpone the hysteria, but only temporarily (and would they penalize the child later for the parent’s crime of not enrolling earlier?). I am torn.
Silly is funny. Subtle is funny. Snarky is funny. Even puns can be funny.
But saying, even as a joke, that adoptive parents are lying alcoholics (and social workers are downright dumb)?
Not funny.
Not ever funny, which is why I don’t understand how Hallmark could print this card, or how anyone would ever buy it (except me. I bought it so I could show you).
I wasn’t adopted as a child. I’m not an adoptive parent, although there’s a chance I might be one someday. I’m not a social worker, but I believe them to be, for the most part, extremely caring and hard-working people who do often thankless work. A adoption social worker’s job is to make sure children find safe, loving homes. They ask tough questions because they have to. And because they represent children who don’t have a voice of their own, they deserve to hear the truth–which is what the vast majority of adoptive parents will tell them.
The image on the card also implies that this is a single woman trying to become a parent through adoption. Add another group to those that could and should be horrified by this card.
Tell me if you think I’m making too big of a deal about this. But words matter, and these words are unacceptable.
I did register my disgust with Hallmark, by the way. I sat on this post for awhile waiting for an answer. If one arrives, I’ll let you know.
At least according to the (pre)school pictures. Seriously:
Overlook the graininess and the fact that I forgot it was picture day and he’s wearing something dumb and it looks like someone licked his forehead right before the photo was snapped.
The pose. Is that not the most ridiculous way to pose a FOUR-YEAR-OLD for a photo? Lounging, but not quite, against a fake rock? With his hands folded in the prissiest possible way?
And then, beyond the fake rock, there’s the ridiculous fake grassy meadow, and fake rustic picket fence.
People must buy these pictures, because why else would the photographers continue to use the cheeseball poses and the cheeseball backdrops?
I would like to know, who are these people, and what is wrong with them?
Is it ageist of me to decide that I won’t be voting for the 22-year-old college student who is currently running for mayor of Mayberry? I just think I might want a little more experience in a politician. Then again, experience is generally what turns promising candidates into corrupt jerks. I know we all think we know it all as fresh-faced college grads (and that other cities have elected youngsters to the mayor’s office). Still, I think that cultivating relationships and commanding respect are critical for this kind of job, and wonder if someone of this vintage could actually do that.
Great! I am officially both old and prejudiced.
(And I know! Bless my little heart for even planning to vote in a mayoral election for a town of this size.)
I take perverse pride in my unbroken streak of never leaving the grocery store without seeing someone I know. (It’s right there on my About page.) It doesn’t matter which of the two stores in town I go to, or what time of the day or night, or what day of the week, or whether I just dash in for a gallon of milk or spend an hour thumping melons and squeezing lemons and comparing calorie counts.
One of the several drawbacks to this is the repeat meet-up. I see someone, we say hello and maybe chitchat for a minute. Then two minutes later we’re face-to-face again in another aisle. Then we’re in this horrible synchronous shopping mode where we see each other over and over in every single aisle. Awkward!
What do you do in these situations, or what would you do if you didn’t live somewhere so terribly cold and anonymous?
Have we ever talked about dream jobs? What is yours, assuming salary, education, background, location, etc. are no object? Mine is translator of French novels.
1. Good news follow-up from my last post: Both children are at school today. All day (if my phone rings I am not going to answer it). I had a celebratory egg sandwich from Starbucks.
2. Bad news follow-up from my last post: Day 11 of the migraine. Have tried three potent drugs (one of which was delivered by jab where the sun don’t shine) which didn’t work and am now on a course of steroids. And yes I do feel just! a bit! hyper!
3. Apropos of nothing follow-up from my honesty post: Because of #7, if you use pseudonyms for your children on your blog, I am deadly curious to know their real names. Not for any nefarious reason, though.
4. Not a follow-up, but a prelude: If you consider your blog “small”–in readership, reach, presence or absence on PR radar screens, however you want to define it; and if you think you might be going to BlogHer next summer (in New York City, August 6-7), would you raise your hand? In the comments or by email, mayberrymom2006 at yahoo.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have one sick child and one healthy child. The sick child is firmly parked on the couch in his/her jammies and feels lousy. The healthy child needs to be taken to school.
If you lived in a super-safe neighborhood; and if the doors were locked; and if you had a really loud, annoying dog; and if the round-trip school drop-off would take 10 minutes or less; and if the sick child could be trusted 100% to remain on the couch no matter what;
would you leave the sick child home alone while you took the healthy one to school?
Even before Julie posted about the Balloon Boy debacle, I’d been thinking about obedience. Especially at bedtime, I go into Full Drill Sergeant Mom Mode. I bark orders and cannot tolerate anything short of instant acquiescence.
And I hate that. I hate the atmosphere that it creates. And I hate the thought that I am scaring my children into submission. Because not to be melodramatic, but isn’t this how holocausts and genocide begin? With blind obedience? With compliance motivated by fear? From what I’ve read about the Heene family, it sure sounds like little Falcon had reason to dread his father’s wrath.
So no, I don’t want to be that kind of parent. Nor do I think I am. I do still want my kids to listen, to follow rules, to be courteous to me and to others. I also want them to be independent in thought and in deed. Sometimes it’s hard to see where the boundary is. (Stop moving, boundary.)
A week or so ago, Jo was whining about doing her homework. It wasn’t due the next day so she didn’t really have to do it right then and there. But her attitude was killing me. I insisted that she complete the assignment. Then I told her that if she had asked politely whether she could do her assignment another time, I would have agreed.
When it’s not, sayjustforexample, bedtime, I explain to my children that when their dad and I make (and enforce) rules, we aren’t in fact trying to antagonize our children. We are trying to keep them safe and healthy. We are trying to help them be respectful and respected. We are trying to help them do their best, no matter who is, or isn’t, watching.
Come back in about 20 years to find out how we did.
@AboutToys good idea! our school had "meet, greet, & weep" for kindie parents at coffee shop, but I didn't go. Massage woudl've been better! 2010/09/01
Me too RT @MeaganFrancis: Using the Wifi at a new McD's. Has a kids' computer game station instead of a playland. I find this disturbing. 2010/09/01
@AboutToys thanks! have less than 2 hrs to compose myself now ;) 2010/09/01
