What do you think about the “so glad to send the kids back to school” sentiment from people whose children are in public/private school? This topic came up on the Well Trained Mind forums, and opinions were mixed.
Some people felt like it was merely an expression of relief to return to a familiar routine. I’m sure that’s part of it, and is perhaps the actual intent behind some parents’ jubilation over the return to school, though that might be somewhat belied by the sheer exuberance about the children being gone for the day.
Some people felt it was expressive of sometimes we all (even homeschoolers) feel, which is “I’d like ONE FRIGGIN QUIET MINUTE TO MYSELF NOW PLEASE THANK YOU!” Definitely a sentiment with which I can empathize, as I dearly enjoy a brief break from the constant demands of parenting, though I don’t think I’m in any way entitled to a 7-8 hour break, 5 days a week.
Some people felt like it was indicative of an unhealthy mentality about what our “real lives” are or should be and how we must send children away in order to have those “real lives.” I think this is the crux of it and this is far from the only area where this mentality manifests. I also don’t think this is something people are making up in their own heads; there’s serious social pressure to divorce our “real” identities from parenting and to celebrate opportunities to not be beholden to our children’s needs.
When a woman gets pregnant, she’s bombarded with social messages that tell her she is supposed to “want her body back,” and the pressure begins to keep pregnancy as short as possible. When she breastfeeds, she’s not only told she’s supposed to “want her body back,” but to “want her life back,” something that can only be done by weaning the baby, of course, since breastfeeding is clearly not a part of life and “life” seems to be comprised of as many tactics as possible to physically distance yourself from your offspring. Case in point, when her child becomes school age, the woman is supposed to rejoice in sending the child away (to “real” school, of course), so she can finally “have her life back” again.
“Life,” by the way, doesn’t mean the responsible thing you’re living, with a spouse/partner, children, and a job. “Life” actually means that thing you were doing BEFORE kids, BEFORE responsibility, when everything was fun, fun, fun and you were only responsible for yourself. There’s this emphasis on the false notion of “adult life,” which seems to actually be code for “second youth,” a period of late teen/early 20s-like self-indulgence, partying, and forgetting (temporarily, at least) that one even has children. Most of the people I encounter who are longing for this “adult life” aren’t talking about added responsibility or maturity, but time without children in order to act like children. This is adulthood? This is “real” life?
This isn’t a mentality found solely in public school parents. If anything, I think it’s a generational problem. Gen X grew up, with all their extra self esteems and misplaced sense of entitlement (seriously, I’ve read articles written by Gen Xers saying Baby Boomers should retire, because they’re selfishly keeping all the good jobs), and they’ve had a hard time adjusting to the fact that they are no longer the center of the universe or life of the party. I feel perfectly comfortable saying this, since I’m at the tail end of the Gen X generation, and I have seen it in so many of my peers over the years. I think my generation is getting far worse with age, actually, because that self-involvement that was charming in a teen and tolerable in a 20-something has become very tired in a 30-something. Gen X can’t pull its head out of its collective asses long enough to realize that this message of “real” life that they’re buying into so completely isn’t real at all. It’s fabricated by people who are selling something, be it baby formula or school supplies or a mentality about your “real” life.
Why are they so happy their kids are going back to school? They’re told they’re supposed to be.
And they bought it.
As much as I agree with most of what your saying, I think it started with the baby boomers and not Gen X.
You are one wise mama. I mean that.
I always cringe when I hear moms say that – not that I haven’t been guilty of saying it myself! I think you covered the bases for what most of my friends mean when they exress that sentiment – the return to normal routine, getting a break from the constant demands… and I think you’re pretty dead on with the other points as well.
I hope that we can do a better job of instilling the thought that ‘real life’ is what happens in each moment – not what will be when XYZ happens with our kids.
Wonderful post!
~h
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans, right?
Personally, I am, and likely always will be thrilled that Back To School is coming.
But… For me? Back to school means great sales on electronics and the “delightful” neighborhood children will be gone for most of our day. As far as the rest, I strongly suspect you’re bang on.
I’d comment that the Baby Boomers are the ones pushing this “real life” concept at us which they will then complain about when we indulge. My Mom is constantly harping at me because K and I don’t hire a babysitter every week and go out on some indulgent date. She fusses at me because I’m not taking a class or going to the gym for two hours a day on top of working and commute. She just doesn’t get why it pains me to put my kids to bed earlier when they seem to need it. I only get them for 4 hours a night really. I miss them. I want them. I’m not in a position to stay at home financially (and not 100% sure I want to for various reasons) but my kids are every bit a part of my life. If you invite me to something, except on the rare instance that we decide that it would be as fun for them to stay home and have pizza and movies with T as it would be for us to have a beer and a quiet meal, I’ll bring them along. Because I like them and I want to be with them.
It is difficult when your routine is screwed up but by the time they are headed back to school I’d think some type of summer routine would be in existence. Hmmm. I guess call me next year and I’ll tell you what I think. But you’ve hit well on the whole fallacy of “real life.”
Well, Baby Boomers are the ones who raised the Gen Xers and let them believe the world revolved around them. It’s tough, because the Baby Boomers are really too wide-spaced to be counted as one generation. I know my folks were really involved w/ our lives and activities. I never got the feeling that they couldn’t wait to be rid of us (a little bit NOW, maybe).
Doing something of value, like school or work, because it’s either necessary for either survival or fulfillment is one thing. I just really wonder at the moms who are HOME all day and seem to think they’re entitled to hours of childless time. Why did they have children if that’s what they want?
I am always quite amazed at all the moms who tell me they could never stand to homeschool because they don’t get along with their kids enough to be able to have them stay at home all day. And I’m not talking about parents with older teenage kids (where a certain amount of separation is a good thing!) but elementary-age parents. I’ve always wanted to just ask why they had kids if they don’t like having them around!
Sure I enjoy the occasional night out without the kids, and my 3-4 hours of work each week, however on the whole, I miss the kids when I’m gone and the kids miss me!
I get that a lot. “My kids drive me nuts during the time they’re home, I couldn’t handle them all days.” What the hell did you think parenting was, people?
Brilliant analysis again, Smrt Mama.
I once had a friend who told me repeatedly IN FRONT OF HER CHILDREN how happy she was that school was starting back up because she couldn’t take another minute with them.
And oh yeah – she is a public school teacher.
There seems to be the sentiment where I live, that mothers are supposed to be happy about sending the kids back to school. Just like we are supposed to abandon our husband and kids at every opportunity to go out with “the girls”. There is a lot of mommy pressure about this, and if one dare not behave in this manner, they are thought to be quite weird. (Guess what they think of me?)
Likewise, many are quick to agree that they are just thrilled to have their 6 year olds go from half day kindergarden to full day first grade. There were actually two mothers loudly rejoicing about this on the last day of kindergarden pick up last June. Not hugging their children and celebrating their accomplishments or that it was summer. Rejoicing in that they (the mothers) reached this wonderful milestone where their children would be gone 7 to 8 hours, 5 days a week.
Well, I could go on and on. This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Thank you for posting, Smrt Mama, a very good analysis of this trend.
I was always sad when Captain Science was gone all day. I missed Tank during the 6 hours a week he did preschool last year, because kids grow up so fast, and if they’re gone, you miss stuff!
I am thrilled about back to school now because it means we have a routine and that the NEIGHBORHOOD kids are GONE all day. YES!! Time with just me and my kids!!! We don’t always get along, but they’re MY kids and I really do love them. I even like them sometimes.
When they were in public school, I had a love/hate relationship with school. I loved that the routine was back, hated the length. Loved the extra activities, hated the homework. Loved the free time without them, hated the amount of free time without them.
Maybe if public school had remained like kindergarten? A few hours a day could have been tolerable. I wouldn’t have even minded homework, then!
One of my reasons to homeschool was to spend more time with my daughter. I like spending time with her. I can get a bit of “me-time” when she’s off playing by her self or watching a movie. I don’t need to get rid of her for 8 hours a day to get things done.
I’ve noticed the sense of entitlement as well and it drives me crazy, you have to work for things. They don’t get handed to you. Also sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to have what you want.
I have had, in the past, people express their sadness that Sam & I haven’t had a “real” vacation in years. “You know, one without the kids.” I just have to laugh. My mother, then, hasn’t had a “real” vacation in years, according to their standards, since we still travel with her. Oh noes!
I read an insightful comment about maturity just the other night. Maturity is knowing when not to do something. It’s not the absence of doing it, but merely having the judgment to know when something is appropriate. On a macro level, then, maturity should be knowing when is the season, so to speak, for certain things, and when it isn’t. On the whole, I think we “merely” have an enormous push towards immaturity for all.
I saw that thread and I couldn’t even venture into it because I felt like I knew exactly what it was going to say. I totally agree with what you’re saying… BUT… I often feel frustrated by an opposite trend among homeschoolers I know. Where they can’t stand to be parted from their kids ever. They rail against the parents who have so many things going on in their lives that they seem to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction – build their entire lives around their children with zero other things going on. I’ve even heard people feel guilty about having a single TV show they watch or going on one date a year with their spouses. I feel like adult life is finding a way to balance your responsibilities, including kids and money, with having a healthy space for yourself.
That is the other side of it, but that’s not limited to homeschoolers. Public schools have a real problem with some parents who are up there ALL THE TIME, micromanaging the school work, eating lunch w/ the kids every day. I’m all for being with your kid, but in that setting, it’s distracting to the other students and to the staff. It’s the helicopter parents and their “bubble wrap children,” as my mom calls them. Why NOT just keep your kids at home, if you’re so afraid of the world ruining them?
Couldn’t agree more and I think taking it even further I feel like the reason people want these second childhoods is because they didn’t get the love, consideration, and attention they needed in their first childhoods. So really it’s a perpetuating cycle.
It’s easy for me to sit back and say this. While my mom was far from perfect (really far!) she lived for her kids. We were the center of the home and her life. I don’t need to steal childhood from my kids by forcing them to be independent before they’re ready because I got my own childhood out of the way in the early part of my life.
I see others whose moms put the after self, work, men, fun, whatever and resented the time and attention they did give them. Here they are as adults acting like big kids. Sometimes you even know enough to trace the cycle back another generation.
I don’t think it is necessarily about homeshooling or birthing or breastfeeding (I was born in a highly medicalized birth, combo fed for 8 weeks then switched to formula, traditionally public schooled) but about an overall attitude. About the emotion that parents put into their children. We should consider that every time we give our all to our kids we’re also giving it to our grandkids and generations after them.
end soapbox
GREAT post! I completely agree, which leaves me a little bit sad that I can’t argue some point with you.
You can argue w/ other commenters. There’s a peach of one a few down, nice and defensive, about how I’m totally dissing working parents or anyone who wants a date night!
Interestingly, I was previewing Frontier House for use with the kids, and the wealthy couple from California had a similar epiphany. The father was saying how much time they used to spend focusing on their “lives”, and how much of his kids’ childhoods he’d realized he’d missed. (He also lost so much weight he thought something was seriously wrong with him, only to have a military Dr. tell him that he’d been overweight when he got out there, and was actually now healthy for the first time in his adult life). Eye-opening program, that.
I think an adjunct to this way of thinking is the idea that homeschoolers must know some secret, or have some special, alien personality type that makes it possible to spend so much time with their kids.
I think that maybe the homeschooling has something to do with why parents enjoy spending time with their kids. I recall reading your earlier blogs where you described how painful it was to sit with Captain Science and help him with his homework. When you decided to homeschool, you wondered whether you could take all that time together!
Maybe, when you get the BEST time with your kids (the time where you get to actually watch them learn and grow, where you get to know them as real people. Not where you just drive them around, feed them, house them, and ship them back off to school) you enjoy it more than when they come home grumpy and unpleasant from a day of school. Do you think homeschooling brings families closer together?
This is the primary reason I love homeschooling our boys. I have been a tutor or teacher in some capacity, off and on, since my senior year of highschool. I love sharing knowledge and skill with others. As the saying goes, “teach and you learn twice”.
That being said, working on homework with Cpt. Science was usually awful. The material was boring and redundant, and most nights I wanted to throw away the worksheet and let him know that he should be moving onto more sophisticated topics. I helped him understand fractions and ratios at age 7 by teaching him poker, so I really wasn’t enthusiastic about forcing him to trudge through 2 months of worksheets on long division or multiplication. I felt like a hypocrite.
Now we have more fun. Once a week I sit down with him and we go through a chapter of his computer programming book. I’m helping him make a card game as a summary project from his history reading last year. There are days when he drags his feet and complains and gets frustrated, but I always have the option of calling for a snack break, or taking him on a run, or just picking up the material later in the day if I don’t have to work.
I want time with my children to be on our terms, and public school did not encourage that.
Hmmmm…..
Are you saying that there is something wrong with enjoying regular time away from your children? There are a lot of people out there who rejoice when school returns simply because they won’t be forced to break their budgets on weekly daycare. Inherently, you are saying that it’s bad to enjoy working, or at least that’s the impression I’m getting.
Here are the facts. I have a small child. I work full time. I like working full time. I’d say that working full time adds value to my life, as well as provides for my family. Working actually makes me a better mother. So are you really telling me that I’m not supposed to enjoy time away from my child and wanting to work is somehow indicative of a mature selfish need? Because I really do not agree. And to assume that every person who enjoys that their child is going back to school is going out to “woo hoo party!” is awfully naive. Public school and otherwise non-home-schooling is not “the devil” and people who like to utilize such options shouldn’t be shamed into believing that there’s something inherently wrong with enjoying the time away from a child.
I don’t think that you should have to divorce being a parent from the other responsibilities and enjoyments in life, but I certainly do not think your entire life should revolve only around your child.
You sound very defensive. Do you have a lot of guilt or regret about the amount of time you spend away from your child? You seem to be attacking me on points I did not make. I didn’t address parents who work, the relative merits of methods of schooling, or even the idea of taking occasional breaks from your child. If that’s what you’re reading here, perhaps you need to take a moment to reevaluate why you’re inferring that. You’re using quotations for words I did not write. Who, exactly, are you quoting here?
Obviously, a parent who is working full-time has to have care for his/her child. Some parents are better people when they’re working full-time. I certainly don’t feel my husband is less of a parent because he holds a full time job. I don’t think either of us are lesser parents because we enjoy the occasional break from our children. There’s a pretty big difference between that and the parents who are, in fact, glad to send their kids somewhere that they don’t have to fool with them for 8 hours a day. If anyone is being naive here, it’s you, if you think that it’s work that causes parents to express joy over the fact their children are returning to school. Work doesn’t explain the stay-at-home moms who are glad their kids are gone all day. Do you not have Facebook? Have you never lived in a neighborhood with other parents? It’s awfully funny how the only person here who has never experienced this is you — many of the other comments here are from people whose children are IN public school, btw.
There’s also a pretty big difference between being happy to have a few hours a week with friends or a twice-monthly date night w/ a spouse/partner and being jubilant that your kids are away from you for 7-8 hours a day…then posting or talking about how glad you are to be away from them.
This post is not attacking women who work outside the home and whose kids attend ps – it is about the joy expressed by moms when the school year starts as they get their “lives” back, inferring that their children are cumbersome burdens. It is a generalized statement not indicative of every mother out there. No one says that once you have children that you should turn into a shell of a person, only that you should not apparently shunt your children into the background. The sentiments being expressed, “Johnny is back in finally back in school and now I can be myself again/have the house to myself/do what I want to during the day/don’t have to entertain him anymore…” are on the selfish side of the fence. The negativity is depressing. Why have kids if all you want is to be away from them?
Yes, that’s it exactly. As I said in an above comment, I am not talking about women who have to work for survival, to give their family a higher standard of living, or even for a sense of personal fulfillment. If that’s the dynamic that works best for your family, I’m glad you’ve found it. I would, however, start to look askance if someone were to say, “Oh thank GOD I get to go to work every day and get away from those people!”
Thanks for another great post. I have always cringed when I’ve heard the “can’t wait…” statement, but after our first month of homeschooling ending tomorrow, I have had a serious week of questioning myself and whether I am doing the right thing. While I realize that wasn’t the topic of your post, I still found it very helpful and reassuring after a very uninspired first month of our homeschooling adventure. I guess it helped to remind me one of the reasons why I so wanted to homeschool in the first place. Thanks again!
I agree wholeheartedly. The “can’t wait” people are generally the same people who tell me they admire me for homeschooling, because they wouldn’t have the patience to try it – and I want to reply that I used to be one of those people, until I read everything I could get my hands on and realized I could actually give my children a better childhood (not to mention a higher quality education) by not shipping them off to school forty hours a week!
I watched a BBC documentary last week called “Leaving Home at 8″ about families in the UK sending their 8-yr-old kids off to boarding school. I really can’t fathom that at all – I think it will be hard enough sending a relatively mature 18-yr-old off to college, why on earth would I want to send my children away during their formative years?
I was one of those people, too! I always thought, “Homeschooling? Me? Ha! I’d eat my children!” Instead, I’ve discovered that much of that tension was caused by the long daily separation.
DH and I had a similar conversation last night (re: man caves and compensation electronics). I don’t understand the inability to grow up and accept that you’re an adult.
Oh that was me when he was at school.
And I was deeply worried about the all day everyday aspect when home education became our only realistic option for him having a decent education.
But it is a very different proposition having a child at home when you both have a purpose of what the day will be, that it is a normal day, not a “special” or “different” day.
I’m not juggling “normal life” with sudden constant presence of child and trying to make both work, cos normal life is with him at home, day in day out, so it is set up AROUND that, not trying to accommodate that reality in the short term while holding all the other responsibilities at bay.
And he is less used to his daily life being busy, busy, busy, trying to sneak in extra minutes to spend with his friends before the bell rings and the frustration of being surrounded by kids that you’re not allowed to talk to or play with set in. Which in the long holidays is exchanged for a sudden lack of busy, not having the habit of occupying yourself and STILL finding it frustrating that you don’t get the access you want to all your mates.
Home education and having a child at school are such totally different set ups that comparing parental reactions to the constant presence of their child is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. I didn’t love or like my son any less when he was at school. However we both find spending so much time together easier and more fun than we thought it would be now we are in a home educating context, because it lends itself to being fun , comfortable and friendly in a way that the chop\change pattern of school wasn’t.
Not at all like the endless holidays we had filled with “mummy I’m bored!!!!!!!!!!!”, while I ran round like a headless chicken trying to find things for him to do as well as everything else I had on my plate and getting pretty hacked off with the situation.
My plate looks really different these days, so does his, and that is why the issues associated with school holidays didn’t follow us into home education. Nothing to do with us enjoying each other’s company more than school using parents and children.
That thing you said about adults wanting to act like children reminded me of this entry on Stuff White People Like: “Children’s Games as Adults”
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/06/02/102-childrens-games-as-adults/
Seriously though, when I heard Gordon Neufeld speak (& I’ve heard him several times now) he always says that the social crisis we’re facing is directly related to children being raised by children – & he wasn’t talking about teen pregnancy. He’s talking about the fact that maturity & being an adult is pretty rare in our culture.
I’m wondering whether it’s a change in what people say, as opposed to a change in how people think? Perhaps parents have always felt glad, in part, to send their children off to school, but it’s only recently that it would be socially acceptable to express this sentiment. You’ve got me curious now: I’m going to ask my boomer parents what it was like for them and their friends during my own schooling years.
My mom was always sad when we went back to school.
I think there is a balance here. But, it’s optional. If you enjoy your children daily, all year round, never vacation away from them, etc. and you love it, that is totally great and I value that. I lived and parented that way myself for many years. In recent years, though, I have had to utilize public school and am thankful that the experience has not been horrible. What I mean by a balance is… I adore my children… but I also value the quiet moments so very much and that is, actually, when they are off to school. I miss my kids very much. I have to say that when I think “back to school” I think, “Ugh.. weekly homework packets” and then I hear some arguing and I think “Oh! I will enjoy the peace and quiet!” I don’t value them less now… it’s just different. I also had to start working part time and the experience has increased my confidence and satisfaction overall immensely! I really enjoy being out and with others… (working in a busy, retail store). So, I don’t know if I am articulating well enough… I suppose I think there are a lot of us who enjoy that quiet and share that sentiment in part and still absolutely adore our kids… Thank you for your post!
I know for me, I love having the kids home in the summer,and I enjoy the more relaxed schedule. However by the time September rolls around they are ready to go back to school, and I feel, need the separation from each other. By the end of the summer they are on each others nerves and fight constantly. When they have that separation from each other, they are best friends again when they get home. I think that is just the dynamics of their relationship. They are very close in age, and have a very close relationship, which sometimes causes them to fight a lot.
So for our family that is the reason I look forward to back to school.