Week 1 of camp is complete, and I think it was successful in virtually every way.  The repercussions of having put such an intense amount of energy into my work this week? Exhaustion, relief, sunburn suntan.

I had a really good assistant, Marta:  a young teacher who has recently trained with one of my favorite teachers at the same school where I’m running day camp.  Marta is a funky and cute young woman with a nose ring. The kind of nose ring that goes through the middle of your nose, as in, between the nostrils.  Yeah, so she’s not only sweet with the kids, but cool, too! It was really nice having her youthful energy, and she’s clearly trained well as I see her mentor’s approach within her teaching.

Alas, Marta can’t return for week 2, and instead I’ll have another parent whom I know come and help out. She’s experienced, too, but the only real drawback is she’ll bring along her two kids as well (just like I do). Her kids are … a handful, shall we say?

But aside from a bit of shopping over the weekend, I feel pretty ready for this second week of camp. Week 1 went well, and there is a core group of kids who will be with us again next week and their behaviors are pretty good and the routine we established seems to work.

Bye-bye pit of tension. Hello exhaustion!

The whole middle of my body, from somewhere near my ribs down to my belly button feels like its filled with some kind of heavy, dangerous substance. I have to hold myself steady to keep it from tipping out of my in some way. My hair is screwed onto my head. My arms are clenched and ready. My eyes are weary but wary. My heart feels like it is doing a loop-dee-lou, racing around, while I wonder if I should sit or stand, walk or lay down, write this blog post or make a list of things to do.

Anxiety.

I am anxious about the camp I’m supposed to teach in just a few short days. I am not prepared at all. I don’t have the materials for it yet. I don’t have the snacks. I don’t even have all the activities planned. In fact, a lot of people who’d expressed interest in going to camp are now saying their kid won’t come. So I don’t even know if this is going to work for the school, as in financially. Which was a condition of offering the damn camp in the first place.

I have to confess I really don’t think I want to do this. I am really afraid of failing. I’m afraid it will go badly, and then I could really not get the job for next year.

The Personnel Committee has still not met with me to discuss anything about next year; the staff didn’t say peep, either. So day to day (and this is the last week of school: TWO days left of me teaching after school), I am unsure about my future. Will I have this job in the fall? Are they waiting to see if I do well in the camp program before considering me for the job?

They could just decide to tell me that they aren’t going to re-hire me for next year and that they’re doing a new job search and I need not apply. That’s how unsure I feel. That’s how anxious. Pit of Tension in stomach, lump in throat.

AND YET. And yet, tonight I went to the eighth grade graduation ceremony, which was incredibly sweet. I cried a little for each and every graduate, out of the feelings of love so evident in the comments of the parents, friends and staff. This school really is wonderful in so many ways. It feels more like a church than a school; it’s a community of people who share certain values and work together to raise their kids into beautiful people.

The graduation ceremony left NO ONE out. I even got a rose! I was SO shocked to be appreciated publicly, not just once, but twice! One of the parents took great care to acknowledge the after school teachers (3 of them, including me, who ran the program during her children’s time at the school) and to recognized each by name and to thank each of us for giving her kids a safe and comfortable home after school.

And then there was a part of the ceremony where the graduates gave a rose to each current staff member, even office staff, and spoke a sentence or two about the contributions and efforts of each member. Including me. Yes, including me. I was so touched to be included.

I’d been sitting there, in the back row, with tears streaming down my face, overwhelmed with emotion about all the love these kids are surrounded by. When suddenly I heard my name — and was so surprised. I did NOT see it coming at all. It was clear to me that even though it’s been only a few short weeks, I am making an impact on the lives of kids and their families. To be appreciated publicly? That is such an unusual feeling for me– usually I feel I am on the outside looking in, or else hidden from view. Ignored or overlooked, or generally taken for granted.

In spite of the kindness and the inclusion of today, I also sat there watching the other teachers. I sat alone. They all had each other. They are a group, and I am not really a part. They are full time, while my job is part time. They all have staff meetings together: I can’t go to the meetings most of the time, since I am watching the kids in after school. My personality doesn’t do well with feeling left out — I am just not quite secure enough for that.

Plus, apparently with all the people around, I got distracted and must have left the window open in the room where I teach, because one of the lead teachers kind of scolded me about it just before graduation. The school wasn’t empty when I left it to walk over to the other building where graduation was taking place — and this must have distracted me from doing my usual doors and windows check. Figures that the one day I forget, this particularly strong teacher would notice and take the time and energy at graduation to scold me. It left my stomach feeling, well, like it does now.

I’m filled with dread. Do I get to keep this job or not? It is so hard being left in the dark on this issue, with the ambiguity continuing and continuing. And every day that I work in the job, I’m trying to do a good job but I’m also so nervous. I feel like I’m being watched and judged. And camp is the final exam.

There’s so much going on, I want to scream. There are end-of-year potlocks to prepare for, and when will I do that? I have from 9:30 am tomorrow morning, until about 2 PM when I have to head to work to: prepare for two potlocks, buy supplies for camp, buy snacks for camp, plus take care of the usual things I have to take care of. I am overwhelmed and miserable.

And I don’t even know if I’m wanted for this job for next year!

And I’m working for two weeks from 9 am to 5:30 pm FOR NO ADDITIONAL PAY even though I have NO ACTUAL OBLIGATION TO DO SO. But I feel I was pressured into it: If I didn’t do it, they’d have even more reason to NOT re-hire me for next year. So I am trying to be good, and do it, and do it well, and cope and manage it all.

Pit of tension. Super pit.

They Love Me. They Love Me Not. They Love Me. They Love Me Not. Well, what is it?

It’s good weather for kite flying. At work last week, I made some kites with my after school kids. Unfortunately, it started to rain — and rained HARD — so we didn’t get to fly them. Today, though, my girls and I made a couple kites and took them out to test them in the cool spring wind.

Success!

As time goes by, I am feeling more and more confident that I will be hired for next year’s after school teaching position. I have received many, many kind words of appreciation and encouragement, and I have a good feeling that this will work out well.

I do miss having my afternoons and early evenings home to hang out with my kids, plan my dinners, and generally take it easy. But the trade off is acceptable: the truth is that we are finding the extra income very welcome. Next year we will have both girls at this independent school, and whenever I think about the tuition, my fillings ache. If I have this job, we have the cash to make this a lot easier on us.

Not to mention the fact that I feel personally fulfilled by this job. I am having a positive impact on the lives of a larger group of children than just my own two. I am able to do creative and interesting projects and share them with young people. I enjoy the kindness and enthusiasm of the staff and parents. It is all warm fuzzy.

Plus, I have the summer coming up! The Summer! It will come and I will have my afternoons and evenings back!

Today I’m feeling grateful and happy. It could be the sunlight and kite flying; these are things to remember on darker, rainier days when the tears lurk just beyond my eyelids.

In case you’re not familiar with winter driving in Philadelphia, let me just tell you this: it is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, our city doesn’t get a lot of horrible winter weather, but when we do, it’s not often a big snowfall. No, what we get is ICE - ice falling from the sky, rain that turns to ice upon hitting the windshield, ice that forms along the wet streets, and snow that starts out as slush and then melts and freezes, and becomes ice once again.

And because this only happens once or twice a year, it seems that drivers around here are completely CLUELESS about what to do about icy roads.

Last night, after about an inch of powdery snow accumulated, a steady pelting of ice began around 4 PM. This ice continued to fall, mixed with rain, until about 7, at which point it was mostly rain. Rain on top of snow, on top of ice.

Where was I from 4 to 8 PM, last night, gentle readers? Why, in my car, of course! Cammy’s plane was scheduled to arrive in Philadelphia at 4:48 PM though of course it was delayed due to the icy weather.  She got to fly around and around Philadelphia in a holding pattern for about an hour or so while we inched along the evil Schuylkill Expressway  (har, har, expressway to fender benders).

Long story short? Read the title of this post.

Long story long? Well, my kids and I got to play “count the car accidents” while thanking our lucky stars that we were not #13 in the 12 car pile up that we witnessed directly in front of us.  After we got to drive around the bus full of weeping girls from Liverpool who just wanted to get to the airport to fly home, and all the others who were delayed by crashing on the bridge to I-95, we counted another 11 vehicles, including a school bus that all had slid on the ice and crash into guardrails and one another.

We didn’t crash.

I credit my dad with having taught me well how to use the gears of the car to navigate snow and ice without using the brakes. A single touch to the brakes on that bridge and I’d be blogging today about how we crashed on the bridge on our way to I-95.

When the weather is icy, I usually stay home. I was not happy to be taking my kids on such a harrowing journey, but I didn’t want them to be nervous so I made light of all the accidents. Luckily, the accidents really were all just fender benders– we did not see anyone who was seriously injured. Good thing for seatbelts, huh!

All the way to the airport, and while we sat idleing (illegally!) in the should near the airport (just under the huge flashing sign that said, NO P RK NG ON SHOULD R)  waiting for Cammy’s plane to come down, I clumsily (but excitingly!) recounted the story of Abdullah and the Magic Castle, hastily stolen from the book Castle in the Air. It kept the kids happy, as did the snacks I had brought.

Today is my first day of work - and I am exhausted.

In spite of all the ICE of yesterday, today it’s mostly soupy slushy mush, and not as dangerous. Although this morning a SEPTA bus crashed on our block. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either: school is OPEN today. And that means AFTER SCHOOL is open, too.

And that means I have to work, too! But I don’t mind too much - because Cammy is here and all is well. I kept Annie home from pre-school  so that Cammy won’t have to try to navigate an unfamiliar neighborhood in the ice. And because it’s freaking INSANE that school is not closed today, in my opinion.

Then again, I am just kind of traumatized. I’ll get over it soon.

Now, for a hot a shower and another cup of coffee!

A little over two weeks ago, I had a conference with Carla’s teacher in which our habitual tardiness was a big issue. Since then, I have been making a new effort to get her to school on time — even a little early — EVERY day. It’s been quite good. We have not been late even once since. An important component of getting there on time has been Drob getting up, and making sure that C gets up and gets dressed, so that I can go downstairs ahead of everyone and start breakfast. Plus, Drob helps get lunches ready the night before. Having help, planning the morning events carefully, and also setting up clothes the night before all seem to make being on time every day possible.

Although I am relieved that we’re on time to school, and I am sure that the teacher thinks this is a very good thing, it’s kind of a let down. I mean, getting to school on time is so ordinary. Everyone else does it, apparently without much thinking about it. It’s just… normal. And when we do it too, that’s supposed to be just ordinary.

But it doesn’t feel just normal to me. It feels like a superhuman effort that requires a really large amount of energy and effort.  And I don’t see that for all the effort that we put into being on time, that there is a payoff of equal proportions. I could put this effort elsewhere in my day and accomplish Great Things.

My emotional state upon entering school in the morning is tense and expectant. Did we do it? Are we on time? Get up to the classroom… let’s check the clock! Phew! We did it ! 8:29! or 8:24! or sometimes, 8:30, exactly. We are here! We are here! Hey everyone, did you see that we are here?! Do you SEE what TIME it is?  If I had a tail, it would be wagging. I am looking around wildly for the biscuit and the pat on the head. I’m so pathological with respect to being prompt that even being on time is vaguely humiliating.

If I put this much energy into updating a website, or cleaning the house,  or balancing my business accounts, my whole life would be really orderly and a smoothly running machine. This would save me money and time.  Valuable things, no doubt. And I would be utterly exhausted.

It’s hard for me to accept that I have to keep up this level of effort, and for what? For this incredibly small payoff. The payoff is that C can get to school and put on her slippers and join the class at its very beginning, rather than missing a couple minutes of … well, of doing not much. It is so hard to accept. But apparently, like the first meal of the day, the first minutes of class are ripe with… um, miniscule social interactions that determine one’s social status in that whole grade school pecking order. Or, something. I dunno.

It will be a relief if this all gets easier somehow. Like if there was another adult around the house. Oh wait! There IS going to be another adult in the house! YAY CAMMY!

I will pick her up at the airport today. HOORAY! Can’t wait to see you honey!!

We’re regrettably late for school nearly EVERY DAY. Today I had a conference with C’s second grade teacher and was surprised to find how upsetting it is for me to be reminded of our continual failure to be on time.

I find it humiliating, arriving late for school - it is really hard to manage each morning. I have a hard time waking up, a hard time getting everything ready for the day, getting out the door, and it seems like there is always a delay of some kind. The shoes can’t be found. The homework’s not done. The lunch isn’t ready. Someone’s hat. Someone’s glasses. Someone’s keys can’t be found.

Different problems, different days.

Then today I went to this conference, thinking it may be raised as an issue, but not a HUGE issue, not a HARD TO DISCUSS issue. It was really hard. I ending up crying which made me feel like a fool, an idiot, and a nutbag.

This is especially hard when one is a new employee and one’s co-workers now have seen one crying and being a blubbering pathetic idiot who can’t even arrive to school on time each day.

I am so ashamed. Of my tardiness. Of my emotional reactions. Of my apparent inability to do what everyone else apparently does with such ease and panache. I feel like a failure- which wouldn’t be such a big deal if I hadn’t been trying so damn hard.

It’s one thing to be a screw up thanks to being a slacker, an un-caring person who just doesn’t give a damn (that’s not me). If that were the case, I’d at least be uncaring and indifferent. I wouldn’t be SUFFERING! OH THE SUFFERING!  But no, I failed over and over and over again to be on time to school when it’s been pointed out to me that it’s soooo important… and that was with actually trying very very hard to get there.  It makes feel so despondent. How can I possibly do this when I’ve failed all along.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying Every. Single. Day. Since. September.

Oh and this being late in the morning is by no means limited to this year. It’s been a nearly daily sense of shame and failure ever since C was a pre-pre-schooler and her teachers gave me a daily dose of the hairy eyeball for having arrived too late.

In fact I can trace our tardiness problem back to that time easily; it coincides quite neatly with me being the parent of not one but in fact two small children.  The addition of my darling Annie to the family caused a dramatic shift in our family’s ability to arrive anywhere on time.

AND YET. And yet, we have never missed a plane ride.

AND YET. I am almost NEVER late picking up the kids from their schools.

It’s not ME, I keep thinking, but then again, I guess it is. It’s me in the morning.

I’ve never wanted a tattoo, but if I ever WERE to consider getting one, I think I’d like it to say “NOT A MORNING PERSON.”

The real trouble is the suffering. I am ashamed of myself for being late so much. I feel absolutely horrible thinking of C’s friends who routinely expect her to “not be there” for their little morning exercises. The kids in her class each have a job in the morning, and she’s essentially “late for work.” And she’s a “dreamy kid” who “spaces out.” Yes, we are all spacey in this family. What do you expect? Our big brains are working overtime coming up with some kind of creative genius thing and how could we possibly keep track of the location of our shoes and coats and bags also??

But poor little C. Her education is suffering! (and I’m paying HOW MUCH again for that education??)  Her social life is suffering! Her transitions are slow and dreamy!

What a horrible job I am doing, I think to myself! I’m modeling tardiness! I’m failing to teach her to be organized and structured! Because I’m disorganized!

It all comes back to what has got to be my favorite Philip Larkin poem entitled “This be the verse”, which I’ll quote for you now.

They fuck you up, your mom and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults you had.

And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats

Who half the time were soppy stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Well it may be a bit cynical — the poem does end with an exhortation to “not have any kids yourself”. OOOPS! Too late for following that advice!

But in a funny way, this poem really calms me down. I am not perfect. I am flawed just like anyone. My only hope is that our creativity, our sense of humor, and our ability to think and express and emote in beautiful ways will more than make up for the fact that we arrive for life about ten minutes later than anyone else.

And my therapist hasn’t even called me back yet. Did I mention the suffering??!

I should really be getting to the backlog of bookkeeping and billing that I need to accomplish in order to keep my business afloat.

I am distracted, though, because I have a job interview today at 1:30 PM.

This will be the third time I have applied for this same position: being the teacher and director of an after school program at my daughter’s school.  This time, I am applying for the job just as a temporary position, filling in for the current teacher’s maternity leave.  I am quite pre-occupied thinking about it.

The job would cut into my time with just my kids, though I’d (theoretically) still be with them. Actually the staff at the school don’t want me to have my younger child with me at all, were I to take this job. I see this as an opportunity for negotiation and compromise, though they don’t. I’ve asked them to set aside this issue for now, and to please just consider me for the job on the basis of my strengths, experience and skills, rather than the fact that I have a nearly-five year old child and would have to figure out a way to arrange for her care.

Many of my regular readers are probably already aware that mothers in the workplace are typically paid less than women who do not have children, who in turn are paid less than men. Single mothers tend to be paid even less.  This is shocking to my ears, though I’ve heard it before more than once.   The facts have been  documented.

In the job I’m interviewing for, however, unfair pay is not a problem. I know that they will pay the same, no matter which person is hired for the  job. However, I sense a kind of unfairness permeating even into this very liberal school, coming from our mainstream culture about work.

I believe that the American work ethic suggests that “Work is not for doing with your children.” and “Children are not allowed in the workplace.”  I think there are very valid reasons why in many workplaces this is a good rule.  For example, I myself generally do my work when the kids are elsewhere, because it requires me to focus and the children distract me from my work.  I don’t like to ignore my kids, so when I’m working I make sure they are well cared for and happy — elsewhere.

Workplaces can also be dangerous or inappropriate for children.  Nobody wants a toddler messing with a shredder, or a child sitting bored with nothing to do.  A child would be a distraction to the parent in an office environment where phonecalls and meetings need to be taken seriously and without little voices interrupting.

However, these are all non-issues in the job that I’m considering. As the after school teacher, I’d be the teacher for a mixed age group of kids, ages ranging from 5 years old to about 13 years. The ground tends to be on the younger side, because so many of the older kids begin to go home after school around age 10 and up.

Adding one nearly-five-year-old to a mixed group of kids does not make the job of managing that group any different. I do agree that SOME kids at that age may make their mothers miserable in a group setting.  I already  help once a week with this same group of kids, taking “Annie” along with me.  She has friends in the group, and plays with them. So far, I’ve hardly needed to speak two words to her each time I’ve been working with the group because she fits in so well. She plays with her sister and with some of the younger kids, and has a great time.

I have a great time, too. I enjoy getting to know the  kids and see how they interact.  At no point did I feel like I was torn between caring for my own children and attending to the group. When I’m volunteering there, my children are simply a part of the group, and I interact with all of the kids as needed.

My opinion about caring for groups of children is that if you provide an appropriate environment, then children will exhibit the behaviors you’d want: playing, talking, interacting, and remaining generally happy.  Make sure there’s a good and timely snack, a variety of activities that interest the kids in question, and a general routine that is comfortable for the group,  and the result should be a rewarding and enjoyable group experience.

This group would vary each day in size, just depending on which kids happen to be left to remain in the program so from day to day, so the teacher has a bit of a challenge. Namely, the teacher does not know how many kids will be in the program each day. Nor does the teacher know for sure the ages of all the kids who will be present on any given day.

Ideally, kids can partner up with friends and enjoy social time together; of course sometimes kids fight anyway, in spite of the good classroom management.  At a small school like this, though, everyone knows everyone else, even across grades.  Getting along in mixed age groups is not only common, but in fact, is something that is a specific goal of the school.

My point in discussing all of this is to a) clear my mind before the interview and b) suggest that though there are jobs where it would be wrong to bring your child along, this is not one of them. My younger daughter’s needs would be attended to in this group setting, as would the needs of my older daughter, and I would still be able to do the job of caring for the group even as a I care for my own children as a part of that group.

But I also have to consider the effect that getting a job has on my family in general.

Would it be hard on my family?  I think that at first, it would be an adjustment.  Our afternoon routines would change, and we’d have to get used to that. Dinnertime would be a greater challenge for me, as the program does go all the way to 6:00 PM.  In order to get my kids fed by their usual dinner time (say, 6:30 at the latest) I would have to be very organized about food, and have something ready in advance to heat up once we get home.

It’s funny how having more constraints on your time can sometimes lead to better organization. I’m imagining that taking on this job might just help me a great deal with my nightly What’s-For-Dinner anxiety.

Would it be hard on my business? Again, the challenge is in getting organized.  I would not want to have to deal with customer support issues during my after-school job.  I generally don’t have a lot of returning phone calls to make during those hours and already carefully limit what calls I make when I am with my children.  Therefore, I do not think there would be too much stress on me as a result of being busy with this new job.  After all, I would still have my mornings free to attend to my freelance work and my business duties.

All in all, I think I am ready to take on this interview and I am ready to take on this job. I am qualified for the job, and I am enthusiastic about the work. I have thought about all the ways that taking on a job like this will impact my family and I am still hoping that they will want to hire me.

It’s funny, but I am really not thinking about the pay I’ll receive should I get this job. I don’t even know or care how much the pay is.  I am applying because I have a strong desire to do this kind of work. I am applying because I care about kids, and about this school.  I am applying because it has always been my dream to work with kids.

In spite of my degree in psych (concentration on developmental psych), and my master’s of education (psych studies in edu.), I have not officially worked with children. Instead, I have allowed my computer skills (and their accompanying golden handcuffs) to steer my career.  There have been times when what I felt that I needed was a good steady paycheck. Thanks to Drob’s Job, and his incredibly industrious nature, I do not feel under any pressure to make a lot of money.

So… here I am, Unnamed School, HIRE ME, YOU FOOLS! And don’t worry about the kid. She’s easy — it’s her momma you have to watch out for.

TBH has a post about how tired she is from all her cooperative commitments. Like TBH, Pann and I are members of lots of cooperative organizations. We’re members of two cooperative schools (one for each kid), a food coop, and a babysitting coop. I feel sure I’m missing at least one organization, but that may be all of them at this point– Our kids also went to a cooperative camp but have since outgrown it. And I’m actually deliberately leaving out two organizations that are structured as co-ops but don’t have an explicit work requirement for all members (although we do participate anyway).

I should be clear that I love these organizations. I don’t regret joining them. My older daughter’s school, in particular, is a real source of community for me, and I also think they provide great value– more on this later.

That said, I feel TBH’s pain. I’ve been thinking a lot about the energy we put into co-ops and whether it’s worth it. Making this work for a family is sort of a martial art, something you get better at with time and hard practice; it was a lot more overwhelming a year ago. I think we’ve gotten a little better at this.

Here’s a quick braindump of some of the things I wish someone had said to me when I first got involved with so many cooperatives around the time our kids reached toddlerhood.

1. Have a time-management system. I think lots of parents, coming from working a single job and being the master of the rest of their time, are not prepared at first for the number of evening and weekend commitments you start to have once your kids are in school. Being part of coops magnifies this. You’ve got to have a good system for keeping up with all those commitments, to make sure you can be in the right place at the right time, to make sure you don’t double book yourself, to help you predict your own energy levels, and also to make sure you’re covered for your own kids.
   
   Pann once accidentally committed to coop at two schools at once, but beyond that we’ve also run into a few situations where we both needed to be somewhere (cooping, a meeting, whatever) but we never got around to making arrangements for our own kids while doing that. (We’ve gotten better about this one, but we still mess it up occasionally).
   
2. Find out whether your cooperative organizations have options where you can do work with your family or kids, instead of taking additional time away from them to do coop work.
   
   My family spent 2 hours picking vegetables at the local cooperative farm this morning, for credit at our food co-op. Although we had to get up REALLY early, it was something we were able to do as a family, and get 4 hours of credit (for two adults) in two hours of time. And the kids hung out with us and had a good time too!
   
3. More generally, can you choose the work you do? If so, this goes a long way toward making it all less draining. Sometimes you don’t have a choice, but sometimes you do. I’ve tended to move my school cooping commitments toward administrative and technical stuff, which is valuable to the school, but takes less out of me than chaperoning on field trips. I still go on field trips when I feel like it, but it’s not because I have to do it. Schools have other needs– If you’re a writer, can you fulfill some of your obligation to the school by writing an article about the school and getting it published in a local newspaper? Or something else that uses your unique skills?
   
   One parent at my older daughter’s school recently shared with me that he started out doing fundraising, and then switched over to helping the art teacher keep her materials organized. He hated the fundraising, but he loves working with the art teacher and has now been doing it for nearly 10 years (two kids in the school through 8th grade); the change of job made all the difference in his satisfaction with the cooperative organization.
   
4. For babysitting coops in particular, consider the age of the children and what they’re going to be doing in addition to simple logistical concerns.For me, there are certain plum sits I’ll take anytime they come up, and others that require a lot more thought. For example:
   • Sits which start after I’d get home for work, and end after bedtime. Assuming the kids are reasonably good about going to bed when they’re supposed to and reasonably okay about having a babysitter put them to bed, these can be great because once the kids are asleep, I can get my own work or reading done.
   • Having a kid the same age as one of mine come over for a “playdate”– the kids do a lot of the work. Sure, there’s supervision involved, but I find this takes a lot less energy than many other kinds of sits.

   These aren’t the only sits I’ll take, but for other kinds of sits, it takes a lot more consideration– how badly do we need that credit? Am I likely to be really exhausted at that time? Will it be taking me away from something I want to do with my family?

5. Is the coop work distributed equitably in the family? For the coops we’re part of, Pann and I try to participate somewhat equitably. This really helps avoid burnout on the part of either parent. It isn’t always possible– for example, our younger daughter’s school requires classroom cooping around once a month from 8:30 to 12:00, and while my work schedule is flexible; it would be really hard for me to do half of that, so I end up doing it once or twice a year and Pann does the rest. However, I make up for that by doing other parts of the commitment for that school.
   
6. Are you taking on too much? Sometimes these organizations need specific additional help, and they just know you’d be the best person for the job. If you don’t have the time or energy for it, it doesn’t matter how good you’d be, you shouldn’t take it on. Doing so can only lead to burnout. And ultimately, if you’re burned out, the job doesn’t actually get done well.
   

At the end of the day– is the value we get from the co-op worth the energy we put into it? Co-ops allow us to save money on a product or service by performing some of the labor involved in delivering that product or service. In other words, they allow us to trade time for money. There are other ways to trade time for money (”work”, “do it yourself”, and also “doing without”) and sometimes those other methods provide better value than the co-op does.

On the other hand, sometimes the cooperative organization provides qualitative value that can’t be purchased elsewhere (community, better quality food, better quality school, babysitters who aren’t teenagers, etc.) so that has to be taken into account. But my personal store of energy also provides me with qualitative value that can’t be purchased elsewhere, and I need to consider that every time I take on a cooperative commitment. It comes down to honoring our own energy, something that can be exceedingly difficult to do as a parent.

We spend about $9000 per year to send our daughter to a private elementary school. When our younger daughter reaches school age, that figure will double. Is it worth it?

People in my neighborhood mostly would agree, that yes, it’s well worth the second mortgage, getting by with one car (we still have two- one is 12 years old and the other 14 years old, but we don’t owe any money on either car at this point), it’s worth putting off home improvements, begging for requesting financial aid or help from parents, and much more.

I have to admit, that so far, it’s been a great pleasure to send her off each day into an environment that I am completely confident in.  She is thriving; learning to read, excelling at math, packing away tons of facts, as well as getting the big picture in many different themes.  Socially she’s blossoming, making friends, learning about how to express herself confidently, and so much more.

One might argue that she’d do equally well in one of our city’s better public schools.  And I concede only that we’ll never know if that is true. I do know that aside from one particularly fanatical family who lives near me, the parents I have spoken to who have decided to send their kids into the public schools all seem to have a couple things in common.

The group of parents I’m referring to are mostly white, middle class families (a few are bi-racial couples) who are choosing to send their children into schools that are at least 85% African American, in a city where public schools are always needing to fight for a budget, where violence in the schools is a serious issue, where classroom size is constantly pushed to its limits. Where they cut art to save money.
First, these parents all seem to have a very strong ideology that public schools are improved by the presence of white middle class children.  I heard on NPR recently that there is some evidence that poorer kids benefit by getting their educations side by side with children from the middle classes.  People tend to agree that having an involved, caring group of parents makes a huge difference in schools.  So, many of the folks that I have spoken with seem to feel that by using the public schools, they are contributing to the community in which they live, and thereby making it a better place. I won’t argue with that!

But the other common thread I seem to hear is that these parents also admit that the school experience their child is getting is at best mediocre.  When I talk to parents about this admittedly Hot Button issue, I first hear at length about the ideological reasons why choosing a public school is “the right thing to do.” I also hear a lot of “their kids are turning out fine.”

What of the quality of their lives? Well, their kids are “learning the hard way” about getting along when they have to learn to deal with bullies.  Their kids are getting “hard life lessons”.  Excuse me, but in KINDERGARDEN???

I just could not see my tender 5 year old entering such an arena.  I also didn’t want to see myself or my husband coming up against a system over and over again just to fight for things that we thought should be a given in school. Would she have art? Music? Would they allow her to be creative, an individual? And we certainly didn’t want to move to the Suburbs.  The suburbs? Ew, sorry, not us.

In our city, the public schools all require children to wear uniforms. This policy irks the individualist in me to the core. When I asked parents of public school kids how they felt about the issue, they snickered and said that it was the least of their worries; they had more important issues to work on and were picking their battles carefully.

I didn’t want to battle. I didn’t want to fight. I wanted my daughter to be safe, happy, and to grow academically, socially, and emotionally.  Life’s hard enough without having school be a battleground.

So instead we pay through the nose, and we love it. Crazy world, huh?

Being depressed can cause a tremendously weird distortion in how I perceive things. Words can be twisted (by my own mind!) to sound worse than they were as they were issued from the mouth of their speaker. Situations seem hopeless even when there’s really a solution with a few strategic moves and some accommodation. It’s really frightening to look at these times and feel a lack of confidence in my own ability to know what’s really going on.
I got to thinking about depression again today because my brother is in a terrible funk with his own depression.  My depression sucks, but it seems to me that his is an enormous sewer of shit in which he’s unable to keep his head above water. Read the rest of this entry »