<p>I don’t expect everyone to join in - I would have just been grateful if people would have shown up for the parent meetings last year. We had an interim principal and we were trying to solicit community input as to whether to hire her as a permanent principal or to open up the search. We sent questionaries to homes, had several schedule meetings etc. with minimal input. When we told the district we wanted to reopen the search after careful deliberation, then voices that had never made them selves heard or present before came out of the woodwork against the decision that had been made incidentally with teachers being the loudest voice to do a search.
So my experience has been that community members are happy with someone else running everything, until they don’t like something and then they want their $.02 to count for more than any one elses.</p>
<p>as far as not getting involved in everything- that is why I love being at a school of 1700 with an involved community, as opposed to a school of 650 with an uninvolved community. Don’t have to plan * anything*.
don’t feel guilty if you can’t participate in all their little functions, just like I hope you don’t feel guilty about saying no to charities that solicit donations.
I pick my charities and I donate to them, and that is it. I have to budget my money.
Same with time. I pick the things I am involved with, and that is it.
It is good to say no.</p>
<p>DocMom: there’s a way to say “9 is too many”. You can stand up and say “I’m afraid if we try to do nine appreciation days a year that we won’t be able to do a really good job. How about one each semester that really means something?”</p>
<p>Believe me, most teachers are parents too, they’re NOT going to think you don’t appreciate them if you only want to do one thing a semester! Besides, most teachers are too busy grading to be at a PTSA meeting, even if there is a “T” in the name.</p>
<p>You know, dmd, about 50% of the teachers would be okay with that. But teachers, just like any other subset of the population, do not have the corner on reason. I’m actually 100% sure there’d be a few upset…not to mention the parents who think you’re unappreciative because you want to decrease the amount!</p>
<p>Anyway, the point isn’t just teacher appreciation days, although that seems to be the divergence this thread has taken. It’s everyone’s little pet projects (often uncoordinated, I might add) that demand everyone else’s time.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity, I think you are right about some schools being uninvolved. We have had our kids in both private and parochial and my opinion from experience would be parochial gets a little more parent involvement, maybe even too much, while public schools could probably use a little more. I also say no to charities except those we have specifically planned for, although I do admit I always feel guilty about not being able to give to everything. Catholic guilt! Catholic schools usually do a very poor job in planning their fundraising activities - they use a scattershot approach. This drives me nuts. They should plan a few - two or three - very profitable events or drives per year and direct their volunteer hours towards those that pay off. I mean, you can have something like 500 bake sales to equal the funds raised at a well organized fundraising event, and both your volunteers and donors do not get sick of seeing you selling something every week. But try selling that idea to a bunch of people who have been doing their pet projects for years. We move every 5 to 7 years and I’ve seen planned fundraising done very well in a couple of schools and quite poorly in a couple of others. Guess which ones are financially healthy? (sorry for the digression).</p>
<p>I was thinking of how I could try and get thread back on track- I was a very involved parent particulary when my oldest was born. I must have read 80 parenting books from Rudolf Driekers to Leach to Bettelheim and Joesph Chilton Pearce. I made her baby food by hand ( and froze it) I combed the used clothing stores for mousefeathers dresses, she only wore cloth diapers ( and biobottoms) and she was enrolled in gymboree- swimming-gymnastics-creative dance center- girl choir and pacific northwest ballet ( not at the same time) oh and art classes.
then I had my 2nd one.</p>
<p>I used to sterilize the oldest bottles ( yes I breast fed- but when she came home from hospital she wasn’t big enough to nurse and so I had these cute bottles with the red premie nipple that I had to cut a hole in so I could pour it down her throat.). When the 2nd one came- I rinsed off her pacifiers instead of buying a new one everytime it fell on the floor!</p>
<p>Biobottoms! I’d forgotten. Thankfully. Damn things leaked. I used to make the crib in layers: waterproof cover, sheet, waterproof cover, sheet, waterproof cover. Then I’d just peel a layer instead of having to strip the whole thing. I could peel a layer and change my daughter (14 months older than my son) withoug waking her. </p>
<p>Even so, I <em>LOVED</em> using cloth diapers. They picked up the dirty ones, they delivered clean ones, and they took checks. Oh, and they made great baby washcloths too. At the peak, I was getting 220 diapers a week delivered.</p>
<p>And then my son–who was very assertive at a very young age–said (this is the actual quotation): “Mom! No cloth! Disposables only!” He was just shy of two. My D was out of diapers by then.</p>
<p>Just bought the “Perfect Madness” book. Not sure I buy into this “everybody” business. I’m sure most of us have bit off more than we could chew at times in mothering, sometimes in some foolish projects where we become so obsessed, but I don’t know anyone well who fits into the mold of American motherhood that the author portrays. I did have delusions of raising my kids perfectly and that they would reward this perfection with perfection of their own. My son took care of this notion for me very quickly. Perhaps my D would have continued this myth further as she was such an easy baby, child, but, perhaps because of the contrast to her brother and because he really kept me hopping. But most of us who raised the little ones those days, and these days do enjoy much of it. Yeah, there are time… but, there are times at work and in every aspect of life. Wish we had more money, more time, kids who listened better. It is not perfect. And there are the heartaches, but motherhood has always brought the heartaches. We are are as happy as our unhappiest child, but that is often the case. I do think that many of us who grew up excellent students with high aspirations, find it frustrating that we are find our selves indadequate at times in helping our children when they won’t help themselves. But I just don’t see this abject misery, nor have I seen it except in isolated cases.</p>
<p>Loved that, Jmom–and the bit about biting off more than we could chew. You especially, and with a big heart !!</p>
<p>Haven’t seen the book, but I was an uneven student/EC ‘performer’ who managed to morph into a highly successful adult. I’ve never applied the perfect model to my boys–though I’ve sometimes beat myself up for that; reading posts about ‘perfect’ CC kids, for example, LOL. Still, my expectations, relative to the general population, are probably too high.</p>
<p>You are probably a lot healthier for not applying such an impossible expectaton to something so unpredictable, but many of us had always aimed high at everything and truly believed that a child was pretty much the product of the environment. And so we tried to make the environment perfect which is impossible. Lots of impossible tasks. But kids do have the knack of humbling us. My friend who had her son when I did (2 weeks apart), was truly the perfect mother (at least in my eyes) to the perfect child which of course made me feel inadequate at times. He was one of those easygoing kids that are blessings and the only drawback is that mom was getting the idea that she was the reason. Kid number 2 quickly dispelled that notion, though time probably would have anyways. But there are those who have “perfect” kids. I can honestly say that my D was pure joy even through her teen years, and my niece whom we got when she was 9 years old was also wonderful (still is) despite a pretty rough life she had before joining us. The boys, on the other hand, wasted no time in letting me know that it was going to a tough go. My nephew practically spit in my face when he joined us, S1 missed enough baby milestones that I gave up on baby books that had any chronology in them. By the time he sat up on his own, it was not worth noting as he already was running, climbing, etc. He has always preferred the rougher road in the journey through life, and as his mom, I ended up accompanying him through much of it. </p>
<p>We all wonder if we are doing, have done “right” things. I know that as a tutor for SATs, I’ve often wondered if I did the right thing in letting my kids do lots of things they liked rather than working them on the tests as many of my clients do with their kids. My girls, did not score that high on their SATs, not good advertisement for my skills. I could have made some things a lot easier had a gone that route. And it has been suggested to me thousands of times that my boys had too much to do to be successful students, and that their activity level contributes greatly to some of their ADHD behavior. They could be right. We all balance as we think is best, and sometimes we will miss. But it seems that I have so much to do that I don’t have much time to ruminate over these decisions as there are so many new ones to make, and there are some good times as well as bad in living this life. </p>
<p>The book has a valid point, but it does seem to want to hammer it to the ground which many of these types of books tend to do. I just don’t believe life is so bad for middle/upper middle class moms in the US, nor do I believe it is so idyllic for the French families as depicted in the opening chapters of this book.</p>
<p>We have a running joke at our house about “perfect mom/dad/wife/husband/kid” points.</p>
<p>For example, my son will say “if you want some perfect mom points, you could make chocolate chip cookies.” Or I’ll say “perfect husband points for a backrub.” Over Christmas, when I was fighting pneumonia, I awarded many perfect kid points because the kids did the grocery shopping and walked the dog (which was good, because I couldn’t get out of bed without doubling over coughing). It is also possible to lose “perfect mom” points, say for yelling at the kid in front of their friends. </p>
<p>I think it’s possible to be a perfect mom, kid, husband, wife… for about 20 minutes. Sometimes as long as an hour—but rarely.</p>
<p>Jamimom, I agree with you…not going to feel sorry certainly for the upper class Mom and her quest for perfection…many problems are of their own doing and at least they have many choices that other mothers don’t have…I was tempted to buy the book but think I might end up throwing it against the wall! LOL…</p>
<p>I agree that the author exaggerates, which is, of course, a great way to sell books and articles. Also agree that she is talking about a certain population. However, I very much appreciate her connecting the private and public spheres. I think we need to do a lot more of that in this country.</p>
!!</p>