Stacey Bowen's New Email Account

I have a neighbor who has a dd in 4th gr and twins in K. I met her about 2 years ago.

Dh and I took our kids out of school last year, and she has been very supportive to me. She calls
and e-mails with questions about what we do. She has brought the kids over to play with mine
on their days off. HOWEVER....it is like we have this underground friendship. She has
invited me to one of those "all come over and bring your checkbook" parties...Southern Living? All
of the p.s. moms I used to be acquainted with were there. She had a Holt and a Gatto book
that I had lent to her...which she had told me she loved....and in fact, was going to get for herself.
She wanted to return them to me at the party. She had them double wrapped in opaque plastic
bags, and waited until almost everyone left before bringing them out.

During the party I listened to story after story about unhappy kids, guidance counselors
overstepping their bounds, homework taking them into bedtime hours, and parents literally
afraid to rock the boat and do anything about it. (I don't know if I am being hypocritical...as
I didn't do much about it when my kids were in either...other than accept my duty as the Royal
Pain in the Teacher's Bottom, which really had no positive effect to speak of).

Anyway...it was weird. One mom, who had a child in my son's K class last year, went on
and on about the reading assessments, and the math assessments, and the color code punishment
system: every classroom now has a chart up front, the kids get moved from green, to yellow, to
orange, to red....if they misbehave. If they make it to purple, down to the principal. The teachers
are spending more time at that chart....constantly threatening to "move someone to yellow"...etc.
Can you imagine this for any age? I finally spoke up and asked why the parents allow this in
the classroom. How on earth does the teacher have any time to help the children with all of this
nonsense going on? They looked at me like I had just lifted my leg and peed on the carpet.

They just ignored me after that. One continued the thread with a story of how one of
the 4th grade teachers who hates band kids, put a whole table full of them on yellow for making
too many disruptions as they were trying to leave in the middle of class to go to band practice.
Since they were on yellow, she held them back in the class for 20 minutes, not letting them leave.
When they finally did get to band, the band director put them on yellow for being late. I'm not sure
what exactly happened after that...but whenever the kids get put on something other than green,
some sort of punishment is assigned.
(We experienced things like this when my oldest was in 4th...but they didn't have the color code
system, yet....he would raise his hand to leave class, and the teacher would tell him not to
interrupt, just get up and leave. The next time, when he just got up to leave, she would yell at him
for getting up in the middle of class).

Back to the original topic.....there have defininately been changes with my old friends, and family
members who I used to be very close to. I know people in all of the situations I have been reading
about here....women who have to work because their families have become dependent on their incomes
through large home and fancy car purchases ...women who claim that they have to work, because they
couldn't stand being around their kids all day...(some who take their kids to daycare, even when they
have the day off) and women who are sahm's, and feel that finally being able to send their last child to
full-time school is the reward for all of their "hard work." I tend to get frustrated and depressed when
I think too much about not knowing how to get through to this many people...but I do agree with the
"shout it from the rooftops" philosophy.

We have another daycare popping up here....that makes 3 large full-time centers within a 3 mile
stretch. (And we're in a pretty rural area). The latest one is literally one parking lot away from another.
When the last one was built, right along a major thoroughfare...my husband joked, and said "Can't you
just feel the excitement...parents won't even have to stop...they can just toss them out the door as they
drive by." One has a huge banner they posted across the front...."OPEN 6 AM until 7 PM ! ! !" I just
feel ill every time I drive by, and see those plastic playgrounds with cold concrete or pebble floors...mobbed
with kids, all fenced in and climbing on top of one another.

Sorry, too depressing for a Monday morning.

Maybe these are the rooftops we should start with...
I'm thinking megaphones...and cans of creamed corn! (I loved that comment, by the way!)
What's the worst that could happen, they'd think we're weird?

I stop being depressed about alienation, when I consider what I am missing with these moms...
merely the opportunity to complain about everything. That's really all we did before I left ps....
commiserate to one another. I don't have too much to complain about anymore....and that's a
tremendously beautiful thing.

You are right, Mary....life is GOOD!
Stacey




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In a message dated 5/12/03 7:18:10 AM, staceybowen@... writes:

<< One continued the thread with a story of how one of
the 4th grade teachers who hates band kids, put a whole table full of them on
yellow for making
too many disruptions as they were trying to leave in the middle of class to
go to band practice.
Since they were on yellow, she held them back in the class for 20 minutes,
not letting them leave.
When they finally did get to band, the band director put them on yellow for
being late. >>

THIS is horrible.

But school stories are always horrible once we get far enough away from the
shadow of the school to see things in normal light, don't they?

My column for the next issue of Home Education Magazine is in part about the
value of band to schoolkids--you get out of other classes!!

-=-Back to the original topic.....there have defininately been changes with
my old friends, and family
members who I used to be very close to. -=-

This weekend Kirby and I stayed with another family, whose teenaged daughter
(high school senior) had invited Kirby to go to the prom with her in Los
Alamos.

I've known both parents a long time, separately. They married just a few
years ago, he had one daughter she had two sons.

Although we had good conversations about board games and non-spanking (they
definitely don't spank) there were a dozen tense moments in which I could
have gotten through them by agreeing with something I didn't agree with, or
saying nothing when I had the strong urge to defend a child.

They wanted me to tell Kirby what to do and when, because they wanted to tell
their daughter wha to do and when. The dad was advising the girls who had
gathered to meet the prom dates (Kirby was separated from either group, he
was with us--six couples plus singles were separated) that they should go on
to the restaurant and leave a message for the boys to meet them there. They
would have taken Kirby too. I said it wasn't much of a date if they didn't
go together, and maybe the boys had had car trouble, or something legitimate.
I said I could take Kirby to meet them (I know the town). The justification
for this pressure was that the spaghetti was about ready to put on the table.

Someone I like and respect was willing to mess up the prom date of half a
dozen couples to keep from eating late. What he had said was if that food
got put on the table, he was NOT going to leave to take Kirby if they called.

I said I thought we should just take Kirby where the girls were then, and let
him wait with them, and we did that.

The mom said at some point in this discussion, "Well what do you expect?
They're teenaged boys. They're ALL irresponsible."

I said mine weren't, and that we had gone up there so Kirby could go to the
prom, not so I could eat spaghetti, so the prom definitely was more important.

That was NOT their main answer, because their priority is the family eats
together every night.

Just a tiny difference of priority like that can just about make or break a
friendship. I think the kids' happiness is more important than my personal
inconvenience or preference, especially at a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

When it was getting time to go, I said I figured Holly was starting to look
for me to come home, and it was a two hour drive, so we should probably get
going. I said I would check and see if Kirby was ready to go. The response
(which COULD have just been "Okay, glad you came, can we help you get your
stuff?") was "Too bad if he's not ready, if it's time, just tell him it's
time."

No, it was KIRBY's trip to Los Alamos. Though I could nudge him, I wasn't
going to command him to get in the car. And it turned out their daughter was
talking about things to him that she really wanted to talk about, and he
knows more of the people involved (her real mom, some other parents) than her
friends up there know, and she was benefiting greatly from Kirby's counsel.
(He honestly is a good counsellor and has been since he was a kid solving
other kids' spats.)

It would have been easier for them had I just treated Kirby like they treat
their kids while we were there. But I wouldn't.

My only more-protective-than-they-were moment was when I expressed surprise
and concern that they were going to Santa Fe to eat instead of eating in Los
Alamos. LOTS of kids in just two or three cars (a car and a van, or maybe
van and two cars) and I knew NONE of the drivers, and didn't know if they
knew where they were going in Santa Fe, and how much party atmosphere there
might be, and I just hadn't known that part of the plan. So the best driver
was assigned to take Kirby and his date in her car to make me feel better.

It wasn't horrible, it was just a good example of the awkward differences
putting respect for children high on the list can cause, even with another
liberal, child-loving family. I can no longer abide the attitude, "It
doesn't matter what he wants, he's a kid."

Sandra

Tia Leschke

> My column for the next issue of Home Education Magazine is in part about
the
> value of band to schoolkids--you get out of other classes!!

And oh did I *ever* use that one. We used to get the music teacher to give
us a pass out of regular classes so we could come in and practice. Mostly
we just hung around.
Tia

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
saftety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
leschke@...