School Fundraisers or If I Wanted My Kid to Work in a Sweatshop, I'd Move to a Third World Country!

When our oldest daughter started preschool three years ago, we expected the occasional fundraiser. It was, after all, a Catholic-based school affiliated with our parish and, well, those Catholics are good at asking for money. I dutifully contributed a few dollars here and there, or donated items for the spring basket fundraiser as necessary - nothing too much to break the bank but enough to help out over and above the monthly tuition we paid.

I was ill-prepared, however, for the onslaught of fundraising opportunities at her publicly funded elementary school that started within a week or two of the beginning of the school year and has not ended yet.

Let me first state that I am all for supporting our school. I don't believe the funds that the public education system receives by way of our tax dollars are properly managed, and I don't believe enough of the money makes its way to the front lines. I understand the need for individual schools to raise money and their struggle to find innovative ways of doing so.

That being said, I also don't approve of school children as young as five-years-old being who have no clue about politics, school budgetary needs, etc., being encouraged during the school day to peddle all sorts of junk to friends and family members with the promise that they'll receive some great prize for their efforts. Further, I REALLY don't like that the school is now having students work on these fundraising projects during the normal course of the school day and that time is being taken from their learning to do so.

For example, several months ago, the school did a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. I believe some of the money raised would go to the school as well. They spent at least two gym classes, over a period of two weeks, practicing jumping rope and being encouraged by the phys-ed teacher who told them about all the great things they could win. M was extremely upset with me when I burst her bubble by telling her that she was not going to be winning any of those things because we weren't participating. So I have a school teacher egging kids on and applying peer pressure in an effort to get them to participate and me ending up as the bad guy because I had to find a way to explain to M that it wasn't gonna happen.

Most recently, M came home with a drawing she had colored, and a magnet on which the drawing had been reproduced. The literature, from a company called Art to Remember, let us know that the magnet was not ours to keep but was merely a sample of the types of things on which we could have our children's art reproduced. We would need to either pay $5 for the magnet, or send it back in. Right. Send it back in after my daughter has already seen it and is excited by it.

After pressing M about this latest scam, I found out that they'd worked on this in art class, and that they were told what to draw by way of a template that they basically colored in. So they'd basically spent an hour's worth of learning time working on an item designed to make money for the school. Am I the only person who sees something inherently wrong with this?

I realize these types of things have been going on for many years in one form or another. We all know about the months spent preparing for the high school plays in which the final performances were by paid admission. But there's a difference, isn't there? Those are high school kids who are spending a lot of time learning about drama and who may be seriously pursuing the performing arts after high school.

While my five-year-old daughter likes to draw and paint more than anything, I haven't seen much creativity come home this year from her art class, and I don't see how a pre-fabricated piece of art that only needed to be copied and colored, is teaching her anything. I don't like that my kindergarten daughter is being used for school fundraising. And further, how is it that the school system sees fit to make kindergarten an all-day affair so that kids can learn more earlier and be more competitive, have snow make-up days on Saturdays to meet the state-mandated requirements for the number of instructional days in a year, and test kids to death with EOG's starting in third grade, but sees nothing wrong with taking a little time out of the instructional day to have them produce products for a fundraiser? What, exactly, am I sending my kid to school for again?

And that's to say nothing of the unfair obligation laid on friends and family who are supposed to buy over-priced, poor quality items that are peddled at the beginning of every school year. I've been on the receiving end of the fundraising effort. How do you turn down the neighbor's kid standing at your door with a catalog and an order form and a mother at the bottom of the stairs supervising? I've bought more $7 rolls of wrapping paper than I ever care to think about, and have wasted good money on poor-quality Chinese-made ceramic items that have never made it through one cycle in the dishwasher. I, for one, will not subject my friends and family to this annual display of begging.

As for the magnet, I will be keeping it, and sending a note in lieu of a check for $5, letting the school know that I consider the magnet to be payment for my daughter's time. I will most certainly submit a personal monetary donation to the PTA at a later time, and will be more than happy to volunteer my time toward school fundraising events like the upcoming Spring Fling.

I will explain to my daughter, when she's a bit older and can understand the concept, about the virtue of giving some of her extracurricular time toward helping the school or a cause of her choice, and I will help her to understand that we do not do so in order to win a super-deluxe green plastic frisbee that she would have gotten if she'd sold a few rolls of wrapping paper.

Dirty Words

As we were sitting at the dinner table last night, my oldest daughter informed us that there were some dirty words that they weren't allowed to say at school.

This was a relief to me since, if my daughter is going to be saying dirty words, I want to be the one to benefit from them, not school!

My husband politely asked which words those might be. M said there was the "S" word and the "H" word.

We nodded knowingly. Certainly, those would be bad words to say. But who in the world were the miscreants in her kindergarten class that would have used those words in the first place?!

Just to be sure, and never wanting to miss the opportunity to bestow a lesson, we asked her to clarify what the "S" word and the "H" word were. To which she very seriously replied, "'Stupid,' and 'hate,'" of course!

We looked at each other and smiled, then told her those were pretty bad words, indeed. Guess we'll deal with the big dogs later!

Track Out

This week is the beginning of M's latest track-out. For those neophytes that know little about year-round schools, a track-out is a short, three-four week break that happens every two months. It takes place of the traditional 10 week summer vacation many of us are so familiar with.

Anyway, track-out time has become a big business here in the Raleigh, NC area. There is no shortage of weeklong camps for everything from horseback riding, to swimming, to ice-skating, to art. And while they are a wonderful opportunity to fill in the extracurricular activities that the public school system does not offer, and a necessity for dual income families, I have the luxury of staying home with my girls and so wrestle with the choice to participate fully, a little, or not at all.

Actually, that's not entirely true. In reality, in this economy, it's not feasible for me to spend several hundred dollars for a one week camp, and philosophically, I believe that kids get these breaks for a reason - to relax. They spend full six-hour days being shuffled off to school, going to one class or another, working. I don't like the idea of continuing to shuffle them off to camp when they're supposed to be having a mental break.

I realize in this competitive era, many would say I'm missing out on the chance to create a well-rounded kid who's had lots of experiences. But I'm a traditionalist, and my kids are still pretty young, and so I'd rather they spend their days traipsing around the yard, exploring, imagining, and having fun on their own. It's also an opportunity for me to spend time with M, who I just don't see as often now that she's in school.

It's not that we don't have plenty of ideas planned. Today, we went to Duke Gardens to run around outside for a few hours, feed the ducks (and the catfish) and enjoy the early spring blooms. The girls climbed trees, smelled the flowers, and had an awesome time.

Too, M and I have a mosaic flower pot project we haven't gotten to yet, and a painting lesson as well. We have some weekend trips planned, and some museums we may get to.

In the meantime, she's enjoying the chance to wake up in the morning, hang around in her pj's for a while, and generally take her time with her day, a nice break from the usual rush to dress, eat breakfast, and jump on the bus. She gets to play with her sister, have lunch with her Dad at work, and be outside barefoot in the middle of the day. She gets to have some one-on-one time with me during our regular trip to the mall for Cinnabon and browsing at Barnes and Noble.

As she gets older, I may plan a few more organized activities, but if I do it will only be for one week out of three. I hope she will grow up being able to have both the extracurricular experiences and the free time. We need more dreamers in this world, more people who appreciate the virtues of stopping to smell the flowers, laying on your back and watching the clouds go by, daydreaming. Isn't that, after all, where all the great ideas come from?

Spilled Milk

My youngest daughter is a high-energy, needy, attention-hound. It's not her fault - it's just part of her personality. She cannot entertain herself and will deliberately do something to garner my attention if I don't happen to be giving enough of it to her.

Often she will walk into the room, sigh dramatically, and ask "what can I do???" To which I am often likely to respond, "I don't know, what do I look like - Julie McCoy???" I mean really, I don't get paid to be the cruise director here, kid. Unfortunately, parenting guides advise against the use of sarcasm with young kids. Apparently it can come off sounding mean. So I try to limit such comments to once a day at the most.

The problem is, I really love my kids, but I really don't enjoy playing Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. If they catch me in the morning, somewhere after I've had my first two cups of coffee and read the paper, but before lunchtime rolls around, I just might be in the mood to get down on the floor with them and play.

But by mid afternoon, the mom weariness begins to kick in. I've only gotten half-way through my to-do list, I have the energy of a sloth, and I'm a mere two hours away from having to think about dinner. I still have to attempt some writing, find the bottle of laundry detergent that I sat down somewhere in this house, and, oh, clean up the milk that she just spilled all over the bottom shelf of the refrigerator in an attempt to get my attention. Mission accompished - four-year-old, one point, mom, zero.