I Hate Going Back to School

This is generally a time of year that parents look forward to. After a long summer of having the kids running around messing up the house, staying up late and telling you how bored they are it's great to be able to send them off to school. But it isn't all sunshine and lollipops. There are some serious drawbacks to the start of the school year.

One thing I really hate about back to school is making school lunches. It's not a big chore. Make a couple of sandwiches (No Peanut Butter), throw in a juice box and a couple of nut-free snacks and it's done. Easy enough, yet I still hate it. It's just one more thing that I have to do every weeknight for the next 10 months.

Also, with the start of school comes the beginning of the charity drives. They are constantly asking for cash, all in the name of fund raising. Books sales, food drives, water bottle sales, t-shirt sales. It never ends. They like to use peer pressure as much as possible. They like to work it so the kids feel like they HAVE to buy/donate/give if they want to fit in. The kids come home saying that if they don't take something to school they will be the only ones in their whole class who isn't buying/donating/giving. Fuck you school! I'd much rather just give them $40 at the start of the year and have them leave us alone. Somehow they always manage to have their hand out at the worst possible times.

Next on my shit list is all the school sponsored bullshit that goes on.

First they will have an open house. Next they have some other event that seems suspiciously like another open house, only it goes by a different name. I don't remember what they call it but the parents are supposed to come and see the kids classrooms and look around at the school. Sounds like an open house to me! Then they have family movie night, family math night, family reading night, celebration of learning, a barn dance and a scrapbook weekend. Crap, crap and more crap. Holy shit! I thought school was for kids! I already spend enough time in my day doing shit I'd rather not be doing. It's called a job! The last thing I want to do when I get home is. Walk down to the school with 3 kids and take part in some lousy school function. BAH!

And it isn't necessarily the events themselves that I hate. These things wouldn't be half as bad if it weren't for all the parents. The less time I have to spend around parents, the better. I can't stand being around parents. If it weren't for the parents I probably wouldn't dread this stuff so much.

The most irritating type of parents are the social butterflies. These people are so excited about this crap that I can only assume that it is the only time they get to leave their houses. I think these events are like THE big social event for them. Get away from me you losers! This is what my Mom was when I was in school and what my sister is like now. They have to stop and talk to everybody they see. They seem to know everything about everyone and love to share what they know with anyone who will listen. Well I'm not listening. I don't have time for that drivel.

There is another group of parents that are an even more extreme type of social butterfly. They are the parent council. I'm pretty sure these parents have some kind of mental disorder. Either they were socially inept in school and are trying to make up for it by reliving it by piggy-backing on their kids school experience or they peaked in grade six and are desperately trying to reliving those glorious school days. They are the biggest collection of uber-keeners you will ever see. They put out a monthly newsletter discussing how wonderful they are and how terrible the rest of the parents are because nobody will take the luxurious position on the fund raising committee. I love these newsletter because I can always find a ton of spelling and grammatical errors (once they even had the month and year wrong at the top). What a fine example they set for the kids. I have no use for talking to these parents either, as all they want to talk about is themselves.

Then there are the old parents. These are the ones that are old enough to be my parents. Talking to them feels about as comfortable as getting stuck talking to one of your friends parents when you were a teenager. One of the parents that always likes to talk to us is one of these. In this case the guys daughter is married to a guy I used to hang out with all the time and his wife is friends with my mom. That's not cool.

The rest of the parents are like me. The silent majority. They are going through the motions, avoiding eye contact and waiting for the first opportunity to get out of there. These are the cool parents. These people get it. I like these parents.

What is with these schools? Can't you just send your kid to school anymore? Why should I have to deal with all this crap? After all I already went to school.