With back to school on many parents’ minds, a PTA note written by a mom of three from Texas has gone viral. In the note to school families, she bucks the traditional fundraisers for cash. She asks parents to check off how much money they’ll give for the year instead of time, including:
I don’t want to bake, so here is the $15 I would have spent on those cupcakes.
I don’t want to walk, swim or run in anything that has the word “thon” in it so here is $50.
I don’t want to attend any fancy balls, so here is the $75 I would have spent on a new outfit.
I am making this (blank amount) donation to express my appreciation for having nothing to buy, sell or do except fill out this form.
One columnist said the note “sums up what every parent everywhere is thinking.” I agree selling wrapping paper or magazines for school is annoying, but what about the opportunities we have to socialize and build community? My kids would clamor to bake cupcakes and wouldn’t care how Pinterest-perfect they look. Our school’s Dolphin Dash/ jog-a-thon is a wonderful event we look forward to every year. Even if some of my kids have skipped years running, they enjoy the bounce houses and watching the races. I enjoy our school’s annual adult dinner and auction
All three of those examples are opportunities to interact with others — much better than writing a check and staying home. If anything, it’s the people who organize such things who may want to write such a letter of protest, for they are the true heroes. For those of us who show up, have fun and build memories? What’s so bad about that?
I call “bah, humbug!” on that PTA letter and see it as one of the problems with society today. Many want to check the box and be done. As kids get older, they especially fall victim to this by well-meaning parents.
They may look like adults on the outside, but older kids need our presence very much. Parents often go back to work when children begin middle school or they increase their hours at work because more expenses loom and childcare is no longer an issue. Older kids may be able to keep the house from burning down, but they often experience something that isn’t as obvious — a void that can come with the loss of a parent’s time.
A generation ago we talked about lonely kids turning to gangs for acceptance. Now kids turn to an online world where they are mere consumers, not our cherished sons and daughters. Teenagers may say they want the latest fashion trend or device, but I bet they’d prefer something as simple as a parent in the room cooking dinner or reading a book while they do homework. It doesn’t have to be intense time together; our presence will do.
When I started junior high my mom suddenly stopped getting up with me in the morning and I missed that, though I didn’t have the language to express myself then. Also, for many parents with teenage children it’s a common time to divorce, as mine did. It’s as though parents think their kids are grown and don’t need them anymore.
It’s no wonder on people’s death beds the most common response to what they would do differently revolves around the people they wish they could spend more time with and not how many things or how much money they wished they’d had.
Julie Samrick is an El Dorado Hills mother of four children and a Village Life staff writer.
