Sidewalks...

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Every morning on my way home from dropping my youngest, in fourth grade, off at school I pass the same couple walking their kindergartner to school- the same school. They will be late. Everyday. But they are singing songs, wandering over snowbanks in the neighbors' yards, laughing, and have a swell old time in the process, so it's okay?

Maybe it's a generational thing. I'm firmly planted in Gen X. Life was going to suck and we knew it. So we embraced it, we changed it. We didn't try to change the system we found lacking, we made our own. The Cold War, first personal computers, AIDS, Chernobyl, Space Shuttle Challenger, fall of the Berlin Wall; I remember them all. We voted in record numbers. Volunteered like never before. We were the first generation predicted not to surpass our parents in economic security or success (ended up being by -12%). But we planned for it, expected, and most of us are doing just fine.

Fast forward to Generation Y, Why?, or Gen. Me, or possibly Gen. Why Me? There are a few of these parents in my daughter's class as well. As it would turn out, I am one of the old moms. Go figure. With my oldest daughter, I was one of the youngest moms in the room. Six years later I'm on the other side of the fence now. Any hoo, I have seen some of these parents in action, or inaction, as the case may be. We were all gathered in the classroom for a small presentation on ducks (or some such thing), the kids were suppose to be getting out their homework, binders and assignment notebooks for the teacher to look at. My daughter reaches into her backpack and pulls out all the stuff she needs, opens up her workbooks and notebooks and sits for the teacher to come around and check. Mean while the little girl beside her is looking sick and her parents a bickering over who was suppose to have checked her homework and made sure she had put her backpack back together. Because mom is working now and she's too busy to do it. Dad's arguing the same. And their daughter is crying, if anyone cares. Apparently this happens a lot in their house. FYI: binder was in backpack, homework and assignment notebook, home on kitchen table.

I see this happening with alarming frequency. The parents that pat themselves on the back, because they fork out three times the price any sane person would pay for some sort of “hand knit” knobbly, ear flapped, pomponned festooned, Ecuadorian llama wool, monstrosity of a hat at the Fair Trade store in a trendy shopping district, are the same parents that pat themselves on the back for “letting their child be self-directed” and putting them in a Montessori Charter school with no idea what it means or involves and then gripes out loud about what the teachers are doing. There is “self-directed” and then there is letting your child run around like a wild animal and smiling with an insipid smile on your face because you just don't care enough to stop the craziness in the first place. Lets not fool ourselves.

These are the parents that need to insist that their kids get to school on time everyday. On time. Everyday. That we will walk on the sidewalks, we will respect out neighbors lawns and property and use the sidewalk. We can sing and laugh, skip and swing hands but we will do it on the sidewalk. And all before the bell rings. We need to follow directions.

Why does it matter? They're just having a little fun before school starts. Because it carries over into everything they do all day long. I use to go on a number of field trips with my daughters' classes. They're in a science charter school that does a number of field experiences over the year. With my older daughter's class it wasn't so bad, there were a couple kids that were always on the short list but that is to be expected, but with this younger class... It's like herding cats. They are off being “self-directed”, not following directions, not listening to the teacher, not listening to chaperons and generally being an embarrassment to the school. I'd come home and be so upset over the afternoon spent with the little darlings it would take me all evening to calm down. So I stopped going. I'm not the only one. They get very few parent volunteers anymore.

Parenting is hard. I get that. But it doesn't get any easier as they get older. The problems just more complex and the stakes get greater. I think the lessons on walking the straight narrow will be a lot easier to take in as a young adult if they have been getting them from a child on. Sidewalks, my friend, sidewalks.