I'll Be the Least-loved Parent

When I was 13 and binge drinking and smoking cigarettes and smoking pot whenever I could, I naturally gravitated to like-minded friends. I spent most of 8th and 9th grade with them, moving as a tribe to the houses with the most-absent and least-attentive parents. With basements.


During the school year, we'd have to be content with getting high during the day and only going all out on the weekends, when we'd all sleepover at one girl's house, and then sneak out to hang out at the creek or this kid's tree house or near the 7-11, begging passers-by to buy us beer or Malt Duck. [The very act of writing the words "Malt Duck" produces in me the need to vomit the overly sweet tasting wine-like drink that was my drink of choice when hard liquor was unable to be swiped from someone's parents.]


After a break of sorts of a few years, where the friends I hung with were more condemning of drinking, I came back full force by the winter of my senior year. At 17, I was driving over state lines to West Virginia, where the drinking age for everything was only 18 and where we knew a place which paid scant attention to that minimum. On warm days, we'd skip school and go get wasted. The nights were spent drinking and going to parties. By that age, too, my parents had divorced and my mother had not only become one of the most-absent parents but also one of the most indulgent, buying me booze, likely in the hopes that it would keep me home rather than driving drunk.


We were busted by parents a number of times over the years. Not once did the parent who caught us tell the other parents about what we were up to.

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Monique had a half-brother who was 15. Monique was probably about 30 at the time. I was a few years older. She got a call at work one day. He was dead. He and a buddy had been drinking and doing drugs at his buddy's house. They were fooling around at the pool. When he went in and didn't come back up, his buddy panicked. Before calling 9-1-1, he got rid of all the evidence of their partying. By the time the EMTs arrived, Monique's brother was dead. The buddy's mother had known about what the boys did at her house while she was away at work. But she kept it to herself.

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These thoughts came to mind recently when I was talking with someone about his discovery a number of months ago about what his son and his friends were up to. He went through the son's texts, and it was clear there were a number of sophomores and others doing drugs and drinking. I asked him if he told the other kids' parents, and I think he said he'd told one set of parents with whom he was friendly. He didn't tell the others because, really, how many of those parents would believe? And how many would just say it was fabricated by his son or him even? And how many would just ignore it and not face up to it?

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Looking at my children at nearly 14 and 12 and 8, I can't imagine them doing the things I did as a kid. They are good kids. They are smart kids. They aren't interested in any of that. They eschew the very thought of taking a sip of wine or beer that we occasionally offer. [Okay, Youngest does, but just to mess with the others' heads.]

My mother couldn't have fathomed what I was up to at 13 or 14 or 15. And, like I said, when I was about 17, she was complicit in my underage drinking. [I will point out that beer and that dreadful Malt Duck could be purchased at the age of 18 way back then.] In the younger years, she never busted me and my friends. But I am pretty damn sure that she would have reacted the same way as the other parents did when they did discover the truth: she would have turned a blind eye.

I can't say with certainty what I would do were I in any of those parents' places. My kids aren't there yet. But I want to believe that not only will my kid face the music, but those other kids will, too. I'm willing to corral the kids and their friends and the students on the playground when they're young. I'm planning on doing the same when they're older.

In Full Swing

My wrist and elbow are aching from spending too much time at the computer with databases, willingly for work and begrudgingly for free, and too much time at the dining room table, pen in hand, filling out form after form and too much time at the checkbook writing and signing checks for school activities


The middle school PTA says in its paperwork, "The form must be completed by all parents so we know you've reviewed the enclosed materials." They must be? Forms related to membership and gift books and the PTA directory, wholly unrelated to the numerous school district forms that truly must be completed so my kids can go to school?


So, yeah, I wrote in, "Not really 'must,' right?"


And when the elementary school secretary office manager reneges on her vow to enter the school district forms for each child in time for us to produce the school directory, I suck it up and update the database my fuckin' self and generate the forms for all parents to fill out and know that I'll spend hours updating the database again with their corrections. And kill a bunch of trees in the process.


So, no, we're not really ready to walk that green talk.


And the playgrounds at the elementary school are still unfinished, even though the superintendent cheerily stated in her August missive that "All playgrounds at our elementary schools have new, safe, playground equipment." And what was wrong with the old ones? Close to nothing.


So, no, we're not really ready to walk that green talk, are we?


Oh, yeah, we're in full swing. We just don't have any swings upon which to swing.

This is the Day

You hold your newborn, and there is this ache you can't believe.


You walk with your toddler, and this need to be with him is so strong.


You wonder, "How did my mother ever let go? When did she stop loving me this intensely to release me to the world, to not be with me every moment of the day, to not miss me so fiercely when we were apart?"


But you never ask your mother those questions. Those questions are just too horrible to ask.


Your child ages, far too quickly for you to imagine.


And still you wonder, "How will I ever not want to know where he is and what he's doing ever single moment of the day?"


Today we went to the orthodontist. Eldest has been asking me about a night toothpaste he is supposed to use, one the orthodontist mentioned. He knows it as the blue one.


You ask the orthodontist's hygienist about it, and she offers up a prescription fluoride tube of toothpaste in a white tube, and you accept it.


Offering it up to your child, he looks at it and says, "Jeez. You're so incompetent."


And you realize you'd better mark this day as the day when you understand how your mother could let you go make your way in the world without being in that same world every moment of every day.

Yeah, I'm THAT Citizen

So, yeah, I've got no update on the damaged fence at the school. Except that the principal asked me this morning if I'd ever contacted the city regarding it. Of course, this was only six months after being told by her and others that it was a school district issue.


So, no, in the six days since I contacted the city about the fuckin' fence, I've heard nothing back.


So, yeah, being that squeaky wheel, I just emailed the head of the city's maintenance division with this:


I'm hopeful that you could possibly help me with regard to fixing a fence that separates SCHOOL from the creek that runs through PARK and ROAD. I spoke with your colleague, NAME, last week and hadn't heard back.

I have a child at SCHOOL. That fence is a hazard. For many, many months, I was under the impression that it was a school district issue. As you can see from the email trail, I learned last week that the district now claims it is a City issue.

I would like to know several things, if you would be so kind:

1.  Is it, in fact, the City's responsibility to repair this fence?
2.  If it is, what will it take for the fence to be repaired?
3.  If it is not, please advise me as to whom actually needs to fix the fence before someone -- in a re-worked tribute to comments to Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" -- loses an eye.

In the meantime, we're plotting to have me lose an eye while playing on the field. It's the left eye, which isn't the dominant one, so I think I'll be fine. But rich.

The Label Says it All

Ever take a good look at the student handbook for your kids' schools?


Celebrations


"School staff shall encourage parents/guardians or other volunteers to support the district's nutrition education program by considering nutritional quality when selecting any snacks which they may donate for occasional class parties and by limiting foods or beverages that do not meet nutritional standards to no more than one such food or beverage per party. Class parties or celebrations shall be held after the lunch period when possible (Board Policy)."


In other words, those Halloween and Christmas Winter and Valentine's Day parties that kids love can have only one junk food. Now, I'm all for also providing fruit and cheese and crackers and the like, but are they seriously going to say you can't have cookies and chips?


"Teachers have the right to refuse food items brought to their classes without prior permission."


Fair enough.


"Flowers and balloons [on a child's birthday] are thoughtful gestures, however, we are sensitive to the fact that this may cause some children to feel badly. If flowers and balloons are delivered to the school, we will hold them in the office until the end of the day."


STFU. "...may cause some children to feel badly." Are you kidding me? I've never thought to bring a balloon for a birthday, but I am so going to find out the birthdays of all of Youngest's friends and bring a balloon each time. 


Recess


"Playing tag or chasing games [is not allowed]."


What a crock. I'm guessing it's because that might cause children to feel badly.


Partners in Safety


Anybody who has ever had to drop off or pick up their kids knows the horror that is the traffic circle. At our school, they're now calling it the "Kiss & Go Circle." Oh, yeah, that's so going to make it go more smoothly. "Kiss & Go." Hahahahahaha. Ha.


Ha.

The Grand Purge

Papers from last year remain unorganized, leaving little space to put all the assignments and worksheets and school schedule information that will surely be making their way into the house, brought home by a 3rd grader, a 7th grader and an 8th grader.


The bedrooms of the 3rd grader and 7th grader are as cluttered since their mother has finally ceded ownership of said disasters to the children who dwell in them.


Under my bed and in various closets and secret rooms are boxes filled with birthday cards and photos and home movies and scribbled "I love Mom" notes written by children years and years younger than any who now live here.


Clothes handed down from Eldest to Youngest and those passed over to me from other parents take up such a huge amount of space in the playroom's secret room that there is little space for anything else. It is likely Youngest has outgrown clothes and sneakers and cleats he's never even tried on.


In the cave -- the storage space under the house -- are even more boxes of yearbooks from my high school days, notes from my long-dead grandmother and military files and belongings of my even-longer-dead father.


I had trouble sleeping last night. I tossed and turned for nearly two hours beginning at about 3 a.m. Besides doing the typical berating of myself for being the horrible mother I am, I thought of all those items overflowing and overwhelming. What if I were to die today? How unfair would it be if someone else was saddled with having to go through all these things that mean nothing or little to them? [And here's hoping this isn't premonition.]


I've got a goal for the next couple of months: I'm going to plow through all those boxes and hiding places and I'm going to purge. I figure if I take on five boxes a week, I could be done by Halloween. Which is a good thing since I'm not entirely sure where the Halloween decorations are.


Here's to the Grand Purge. [And here's to hoping I don't drop dead the day I finish.]

Don't Fence Me In

This fence? It is on the playground the first-, second- and third-graders use at Youngest's school.

That damage? It was caused in February when a tree fell down during a storm.

This fencing? It surrounds the area where the perfectly fine play structure for those same elementary school students was before crews demolished it several weeks ago.

The new structure? That won't be done until at least the third week of school.

Our district? Is talking about closing consolidating schools at both the elementary and middle level. Decisions on which schools will be closed will be made in the coming months. In the meantime, I believe the district is demolishing the play structures at all of the elementary schools and replacing them. Eventually. 

WTF.

Since the fence came down in February, I've asked and been told by the principal and other district workers that it would be fixed. "We've put work orders in for it," the principal told me at least twice. "We're waiting for the fencing contractor," district maintenance crews told me. All this last school year.

So this is what I sent to the principal yesterday:

I can see there are many preparations going on to get School up and running for the kids' return on Monday. I have watched over the summer as much work has been done, but I am disappointed to see that the District has still not repaired the fence that was damaged six months ago. We talked about it twice last school year, and I also spoke with District workers, asking what the hold up was. Seeing all the work being done to take down play structures which, in my opinion, could hardly be considered in disarray, and yet noting the damaged fence remains untouched puzzles me. I realize that it is at the District level that financial decisions are made regarding capital projects and the like. And I realize that it is also at the District level that fencing contractors are retained (likely from an entirely different set of funds).

I'm hopeful that you can shake the District up and get the fence repaired before school begins. It is dangerous in its current state for several reasons. First, portions of the fence are right at eye level for some of our taller students. Second, the fence is supposed to be a barrier between our property and the public property of the creek. Third, from a purely student-centered mindset, it's a danger to all of the balls played with at recesses.

I took some photos this morning of the fence. Perhaps sharing them with others is a way to get the fence repaired in time for school on Monday.

And this is what she sent back in response:

We have also talked to the District about it and it is the City’s responsibility to repair the fence. The District is also surprised that it hasn’t been taken care of. I will notify the District once again to see where we are in this process. Thank you for expressing your concerns. See you soon!

Six months later, and now it turns out it's the city and not the district?! I immediately contacted the city maintenance people, forwarding them the email trail, along with the photos.

And when I was done, I found out that the play structures won't be done at our school and who knows how many other schools before school starts on Monday.

So then? Then I reached out to some people I know in the media.

Now what? Probably nothing, but at least I tried.