I'll Take "The School Wants HOW MUCH?!" for $1,000, Alex

Looking back at my time in school, I fondly remember the “special days”. Special meant so many things. Craft days! Who can forget the Ukranian easter eggs or clay ashtrays? My dad loved that ashtray. Once he stopped laughing and calling it a “sculpture”, he decided it would work great on the front porch since it was the only one he ever had that wouldn’t blow over in a strong wind and would simultaneously scare neighborhood cats from howling at the door. Movie days meant dusting off a real humdinger, like “Toby Tyler”. We all sat excitedly on the gym floor, side by side, with our baggies of popcorn and cups of juice that we had just purchased, from the rarely-used cafeteria window, with a dime we had closely guarded all morning. This was positively thrilling to those of us designated as “walkers” since we were banished from eating in the makeshift cafeteria (a.k.a. folding tables in the main hallway) unless winter temperatures plummeted to 40 below. I think the administration panicked at that point, trying to devise a strategic plan for fanning out and covering the “walker radius” with ice scrapers and road salt to pry our frozen little feet from the streets. It was probably more appealing to just let us enter the inner sanctum of the “bus-ers” and eat in the building. When the nice weather finally arrived, some of us went to school busting our buttons with pride at carrying a small bouquet of mom’s garden lilacs or irises to the teacher. Those were special days - and they were simple. School, at that time, was about learning. The focus was on grammar, spelling, punctuation and math. Today, as a parent of two school-aged daughters, I have come to realize that the focus is on three things - money, fashion and “how fast can we give every parent a seizure.” Oh - and more money. This phenomenon extends to all facets of school life. Curricular, extra-curricular and even social. Consider, for example, field trips. We took trips to the zoo or maybe a museum. In recent memory, my younger daughter spent three days at “Space Camp” and the older one left for four days in Boston. Seems we’re shooting our kids over all kinds of borders, time zones and galaxies. My parents were never asked to PAY for our field trips. Hell, they never even had to buy a pencil or a notebook. We just sort of showed up on the first day, fashionably decked out in a new plaid jumper, and our supplies were handed to us by our teacher. In comparison, Space Camp was about $250 and Boston was around $400 (before any meals or spending money). Now, the schools don’t expect us to blindly hand over this money, right? Oh no! They want to “help and support us”... they allow us to FUNDRAISE! It sounds easy. It sounds harmless. It sounds like a great idea - until you are faced with 75,000 chocolate bars and the sudden realization that you work from home and have exactly two relatives living anywhere remotely close to you. You contemplate just how wide your ass will become if you consume even half that much chocolate yourself - JUST so your child is not the only one in the class suffering from the performance anxiety of being unable to “fundraise”. Then you start calling in favors. “Hey! Remember that time I drove your kid home after the school dance and you got to go to bed early?? BUY A CHOCOLATE BAR”. “Remember when I filled in when your sitter cancelled at the very last minute?? BUY A CHOCOLATE BAR”. “I don’t CARE if you were in labor for 24 hours with me. BUY A CHOCOLATE BAR, MOM”. We get desperate. Forgive us. The parental seizures aren’t always about money. Many of them are in direct relation to homework. We used to say things like “Mom, could you help me with this math problem?”. On a regular basis, I hear things like “Mom? Can you help me figure out how to dress like a Disney character for tomorrow?” to “Mom? Can you help me make a travel brochure for Saturn?”. Then, there’s my personal favorite - which was presented to me the week before Christmas: “Mom? We are making a Christmas village at school and the teacher wants us all to make a building to these exact measurements and it has to have window panes and curtains and a doorbell and an address and.......”. I think I fainted right about then. Yet, against all odds, we get these things done. Just when you think things can’t get more stressful, other PARENTS succumb to their multiple, school-induced seizures and forget which side they’re on. Birthday party invitations start arriving - complete with instructions and Rules of Compliance. Costume parties in the middle of the summer. “To make your gift-shopping easier, please add to little Suzie’s Barbie collection!”. One mother got especially carried away - “We’re having a Sailor Moon Party!”, the invitation screamed. Oh wait, sorry - the screaming was me. Not only was my daughter expected to come as a character, she had been ASSIGNED a specific one - because the Birthday Girl (a.k.a. Her Majesty) was going to be the only Sailor Moon allowed. Standing there dumbfounded, being pelted with a darling five year old’s pleading glares, I wondered out loud, “WHO or WHAT is Sailor Venus?!?”. My daughter’s helpful reply was “SEE MOM? I told you we needed cable!”. Well I’m sorry, sweetie. Once I’m done paying for school supplies, books, fees, trips, clothing (regular and costume varieties), party gifts and more, there isn’t a whole lot left over to pay for cable. Then again, who has time to watch television? If you need me, I’ll be in the basement with your sister trying to craft a working, scale model of the Hubble telescope out of nothing but macaroni, toothpicks, chewing gum and tin foil - and it’s due tomorrow.