Mommy guilt (end of school year variety)
Over the next two weeks, I have been "invited" to the following activities:
- Field day at D’s school — 9 am to 2 pm tomorrow
- "Mommies and Muffins" at N’s preschool — 9 am to 10 am next Tuesday (they had "Daddies and Donuts" earlier in the year.
- "Moving Up" ceremony at N’s preschool — noon to 2 pm next Friday
- "Coming Out" ceremony at D’s school — 9 or 10 am the following Monday. (Yes, that’s what they call it. It’s to celebrate the Kindergarteners.)
Meanwhile, I have an in-town conference to attend Monday through Wednesday of next week, and a business trip the following Monday evening through Tuesday.
I’m definitely skipping Field Day and the Moving Up ceremony — T will attend the Moving Up ceremony, and may go to some of Field Day. (N also has a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon, scheduled before we knew about Field Day.)
I’m feeling like I should really go to the Mommies and Muffins event, because if I don’t, N may be the only kid there without a mommy present. (Since preschool is 1/2 day, 3 x a week, most of the families have a SAH parent.) But that would mean missing part of the conference. And then D will be hurt if I don’t go to his Coming Out ceremony.
Why do schools think it’s a good idea to schedule daytime events that parents are expected to attend other than graduation/moving up/coming out ceremonies during the last weeks of school? Grrr.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Do you feel me waving my Wand of Mommy Guilt Absolution over you? I am absolving you! We can only schedule so much into a day. We are all searching for that magical 25th hour, but even if we had it, someone would try to cram in 61 minutes of programming!
Do your best, that is all you can do. We’re all muddling thru the parenting gig, but it sure would help if schools could offer two seatings for events; Day and Evening. *sigh*
June 1st, 2007 at 9:46 am
Your quandry is precisely why the Mommy Wars are real (and will always be with us). Each side wants the schools to accommodate their schedule. As a WOH parent, evening events and fewer daytime commitments serve your purposes, so you’ll push teachers and schools in that direction. Of course, that’s precisely the opposite of what most SAH parents want. They like daytime events and won’t mind volunteering for Field Day if that sort of thing lowers tuition or keeps their taxes down. The ability to be present for school milestones may be a big reason for their choice to stay at home. Remember the teachers and school staff, many of whom are parents, too. They would prefer to keep school events within their regular work hours.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:57 am
I also wave the mommy wand of absolution. I try to figure out which ones my kids care about and attend those (lots of moms go along on the field trips, and I don’t, but I think my daughter doesn’t mind that at all).
I really dislike the events that are targetted at one parent, because it makes the management much more difficult, i.e. the “mommies & muffins” We have two at our school, and there are questions being raised about the daddy event, because there are two kids who do not have daddies (and only two kids). But, the same issue arises if the mommy couldn’t make it to the mommy event. Can’t T go to all the events? Or is that not possible because of T’s need to care for N?
I agree that this tension about during school events is a true difference between the needs of SAH & WOH parents. We complain about it in our preschool, but that’s because our preschool is a daycare, with the majority of users using the school because it offers 8-6 childcare, 5 days a week. At a preschool/school that has significant proportions of SAH parents, it’s not surprising that in school events will be scheduled during school hours.
One thing that schools can do to help the WOH home in that case (other than adjusting the schedule), is to give long-term notice. I am, personally, often able to modify my schedule, and with sufficient notice I can make many of these events. Some parents with less flexible schedules might still be able to make the events (schedule vacation days, even) if they had sufficient notice.
bj
June 1st, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I can’t waive the wand of absolution, because then I’d have to absolve myself for the guilt I feel over missing an important (evening, even) event that my daughter really wanted me to go to this week, because I had already planned an out-of-town trip before the event was announced.
I can join you in wallowing, though.
And if it’s any consolation, she didn’t really miss me that much.
June 1st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Mrs. Ewer, I’m not sure parent participation in Field Day will affect anyone’s taxes, or even tuition. Schools both public and private have historically relied on unpaid “volunteer” work from parents (mainly women). I say this as a teacher in a private school, a former public school student, and the daughter of a long-time public school teacher (who sent her kid to a private preschool) and someone who has already contributed a lot of time to my kids’ education. Also, ask any teacher– the work of teaching certainly extends way past school hours, regardless of parent-teacher events!
June 1st, 2007 at 2:27 pm
It would be so much easier if there weren’t so many events this time of year. I can duck out of work early once in February, once in April, once at end of year. Four times in two weeks? Not so much. I already had to take a full day off to see their spring play two weeks ago. Now I’m forced to miss both kids’ end of year “graduation” events.
I also dislike the idea that, since one parent might be a stay-at-home, it’s OK to exclude the work-for-pay parent completely by making it a daytime event. Because I’m a working mom I actually squawk about missing some of this stuff. But what about the working dads? People seem to have written them off ages ago. Even their own spouses sometimes appear to feel it’s just easier to leave them out of it and do something during the weekday.
BTW on the topic of teachers also wanting to keep their evenings free, our kids’ school always gives the teachers a day off in return for their evening time. That strikes a nice balance.
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I must be the only SAH mom in the world that can’t stand all the field trips/parent stuff/class parties. My daughter’s preschool class has such a hard time every year finding a parent who’s willing to host the class party at their home. And I’m thinking to myself, “Why the heck does anyone need a class party? Isn’t that what recess is for?”
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Jen, I really like your point about excluding the working parent or dads. And I can’t believe someone would be expected to have a class party in their home! My child doesn’t start preschool until the fall, but this end of the year has been empty on our play date schedule due to her friends’ preschool parties. My friends have all been complaining how tight the scheduling is for these events. I can not recall anything more than a simple graduation in the gymnasium when I graduated nursery or kindergarten. The only positive aspect I can see is that these events would make it easier for me to meet parents and possible become friends or at least acquaintances.
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:16 am
We’re in the middle of this stuff, and we kind of like it. Every team has an end-of-year party, they’re at a parent’s house. It’s a chance for the parents to schmooze some, and we’ve already got a reasonable friendship from standing around in the cold or heat hoping that our kids will get goals (or block the goal) catch the fly (or that the Evil Yellow-shirt fielder will drop our kid’s beautiful pop fly). Our kids like it. When our kids are being mean to each other, it lets us do our cruise-director act and try and get them on the meliorative path. Plus, barbecue. What’s not to like?
I do much more of this than my wife, as my job is lower-pressure and has more leave. But she was able to get to the musical show, and some of the games, and the team parties. If you don’t do these things, you don’t build community in these little institutions we are temporarily part of, and which are the world for our kids.
June 5th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
my daughter’s school (public) has muffins and moms and doughnuts with dads a few times a year but they always start at 7am (which keeps me from attending since I’m still asleep, but I could get up that early if I wanted to.