School's Out for Summer!

Today is the last day of school. Many parents dread this day, but I look forward to the lazy days of summer with my kids. What I do not like is the end of the school year craziness that makes me want to pull my hair out each year. It starts about 4 to 6 weeks before the last day of school and continues until the very end, and sometimes a little beyond.

Those of you groaning know exactly what I'm talking about. The end of the year is filled with band and chorus concerts, school plays, projects, tests, awards ceremonies, end of the year field trips, parties, recitals, sports tournaments, graduations.... the list goes on. This of course requires mom (I know this is a generalization) running around like a chicken with her head cut off planning activities, buying last minute items for classroom parties, frantically searching for white poster board, buying teacher gifts and making cheese platters for receptions. The worst words heard by a mom the last week of school "I forgot to tell you but I need (fill in the blank) by tomorrow."

The end result of all this? One day you just stop volunteering yourself, your cheese platters, and your time. I used to be the "go-to" volunteer mom -- PTO president, classroom parent, event organizer. It sucked the life out of me. For a long time I thrived on it, but once I had a chance to stop for what I thought was a brief period of time, I just never really went back to it. That is not to say that I won't occasionally volunteer, but I don't go out of my way to get involved. I know this makes me sound like a bad mother. Research shows that schools with high levels of parental involvement have higher levels of student success. But my time away from the volunteer craziness these last couple years has given me time to reflect on whether we moms, mainly suburban moms, take this parental involvement thing to an extreme?

Case in point: A couple years ago my son's 3rd grade teacher emailed the room parents to ask for help getting some snack donations. She planned to let the kids go outside on the second to last day of school for some extra recess time and thought it would be nice to have some refreshments while enjoying some generally unstructured time outdoors. A few of the moms got wind of this and wanted to plan activities around this "free" time. By the time all was said and done the moms had planned an hour of t-shirt making, baseball and Popsicles all run in stations with 20 minutes shifts. What was wrong with an hour of free time? Kids are already psyched about the end of the school year and the opportunity to go out and play for an extra hour. They don't need their moms to make it memorable.

Another example: The Junior class at my daughter's high school traditionally sends off the Senior class with a breakfast the morning of graduation. These are very mature, well organized 16 and 17 year olds, capable of organizing a breakfast of bagels and orange juice, right? Of course not! The moms have taken over. The Junior class moms organize a huge breakfast complete with donations from all 350 families. This year the pressure was on to have a breakfast just as spectacular as the one the year before. Nothing like a little competitive spirit to make an event memorable! My daughter, a Junior, did not even know about the breakfast or the tradition. So much for the thought coming from the Juniors themselves. I wonder if the graduating Seniors even noticed the quality of the smorgasborg before them?

I'm not an uncaring, cold mom. I'd dare say I'm the opposite. But as much as I want to be involved in my children's schools, I don't want to take over their school experience. Our kids need our support, but we can't plan each and every memory they will have in school. Most likely their fondest childhood memories will not be the ones we planned. They might remember the time they worked really hard on a project they completed ON THEIR OWN and the good grade they received as a result. Or the teacher who helped them through a tough time. Or the friendships they made. Of course they will also remember the Science Fairs, Cultural Nights and Math Nights organized by they PTO, but they will remember those nights most fondly if mom was not stressed to to the point of exhaustion from the planning to enjoy those nights too.