It has been a few months since I have even opened my children’s agendas or signed anything from school. They don’t say anything and although I still occasionally ask as a matter of form if they have homework, I haven’t seen any for months. This is partly due to the fact that I get home later than they do. By the time I walk through the door, they have already done it. I think.
See, I’m making good on my new school year resolution of not having anything do it with that institution and I think it’s time for an update. So, how’s the complete ignoring of everything school working for me?
Pretty darn good, I must say. So far, nobody has been kicked out, or heaven forbid, demoted a grade. I haven’t had any frantic letters asking me permission to put my child in remedial learning. In fact, I have heard nothing at all (which, of course, worries me a little).
What is even better, is that I am not flying into a rage every night over stupid homework. Instead, I get home, have dinner and play with my children. Sometimes we’ll even read a story or watch an episode of Planet Earth (I love that show). Then they’ll go to bed and read for a while more.
The reason I bring it up is because there was one of those “required” class meetings last night which I didn’t go to. Usually I would send my mother who, in her saintliness, is usually willling to go. But she happens to be out of town, my husband doesn’t speak french and well, I had the perfect excuse: I was working late again. It was one of those long drawn out ones where the organizers thought it would be great if the parents got to know one another. So it wasn’t just a meeting but also a supper. I can’t imagine how long it lasted. Or how much I would have hated it.
Still, I feel that guilt has settled on me like a new snow fall. I should want to go hang out with the other kids parents, shouldn’t I? I should want to spend hours cramped in midget desks talking for hours and resolving nothing.
As you can see, once I think about it for a minute, my guilt also resembles snow in the way that it melts quickly…
Lina Branter 