Back to School Nite

It's that time of year again:  It's back to school nite, where the PTA will try to rob every parent blind to make up for the lack of funding for education, and the parents will all put on their fakest smiles and pretend to like each other.  I hate back to school nite but I go so that I know what to make my kids do every day after school for homework for the next year.  (I wish I had someone to make me do my homework.)

I am not the mom that knows everyone's name, carpools the kids to soccer, or organizes fundraisers.  I don't fit in to the mom mold at all besides physically having children (and loving them to death).  I will be at least ten years younger than every parent attending back to school nite and I have tattoos, I'm in college (still....), I'm not married, and I don't go to church.  I feel like I'm from another dimension when I'm at these school events.  I'll have to have a glass of wine before I go.

I need to prepare to fake-smile at everyone...

There's "Eric's" mom, the one that asked me to walk her kid to school with mine.  I agreed until the kid would either show up on the wrong day agreed upon or not show up on the day agreed upon.  At that point I was concerned that there needed to be a clearer expectation set so that this kid wouldn't be unaccounted for on my watch.  His mom agreed but the same patterns continued until I had to call the whole thing off which also concerned me because her solution was that he could walk by himself (age 8) and I had seen how good he was at not watching for cars.

Actually, this kid "Eric" drives me up the wall.  I was at a birthday party and he was also there, without parents.  I stayed to help and sort of chaperon the thing.  As the ice cream was being dished up, this kid started stabbing the cutting board where the cake was with the cake knife.  Of course I asked him to stop and he continued.

Naturally "Eric's" whole family ended up being clients of one of the hairdressers in my shop.  "Eric" runs amuck all over the shop spinning in the chairs, being rude....it's awful and his mom does nothing but ignore it's even happening until I have to say something because I am trying to provide a professional atmosphere for my own client.

Most recently, I saw "Eric's" mom at the neighborhood store.  She was having a horrible time with working her credit card through the machine.  Her teenage daughter was meanwhile dying of embarrassment and I had to go to the other checkout lane.  When I got back to the car, where my kids were waiting, they were almost in tears and told me that "Eric's" mom had slammed her car door into our car and she didn't even care (I don't think she knows that I drive a Touareg).  I think that's the real issue with her.  She doesn't care, but I will fake-smile at her anyway, since I have to.

The majority of the moms with kids in my kid's grade are stay at home moms.  I mean, that sounds great!  I want to do that!  But they seem to do nothing with themselves other than be a mom.  I've spoken to a few women like this and found that they are still identifying with the "them" of ten years ago.  They say things like, "oh, I'm an art major with an emphasis in graphic design".  I wonder what they are doing.  Not what they did.

I volunteered last year to be a group leader for one of my son's field trips.  It was really fun because he was lucky enough to have a very dynamic teacher, a woman who is inspired by herself and her work.  She plans good field trips.

We went to this small old mining town and learned all about gold mining, the gold rush, how to make candles, how fast a pistol fires in the hands of a real cowboy....you get the idea.  Lunch consisted of hot dogs around a campfire.  This mom came up to me and we started talking.  The conversation immediately turned when she found out that she graduated from high school almost ten years before I had.  At that point she started dropping names, like the expensive subdivision she lives in, what her husband does, and the like.  I really didn't care and found my son's presence much more pleasant.  My question was, "what do you do?"....maybe women like her don't know.