I'm really, truly, unabashedly starting to HATE modern parenting. I separate this quite emphatically from how I feel about my kids, whom I adore. What I despise are the incessant demands placed on parents by schools. Idiotic, pointless, test-prep homework. Endless flyers--among which, irony of ironies--are many promoting the virtues of going green. Requests for donations of money, school supplies, time. Reminders to collect for UNICEF during Halloween. Your child's in this special intervention program, sign here. Tell us what you think your autistic child should be when he grows up. Fill in this form. Will he go to college? How about a sheltered workshop? How should I know!??!?!!? He's twelve years old!!! Shouldn't you geniuses who claim to be responsible for educating him be helping us to figure that out. He wants to be a pilot. How about I put that on the form? Then you get him in to flight school.
There's just all this busy work. Forms, flyers, requests, demands. And what difference does it all make? Our education system is so flawed. Even here in the affluent environs of Long Island. Sure, there are kids who get awards, but so what in the end. Trophies and certificates are great at gathering dust, just like some of our dreams.
So what difference does all this make to my kids? They go to school. They do their worksheets. But what they really want is parents who love them, a chance to romp in the grass, commune with nature, listen to and play music, make art, design new worlds, reads some imagination-sparking books once in a while, and snuggle with mom before bed. If I stopped sending them to school tomorrow, would it make much of a difference to who they are as people, to how wise they become? I know the answer is "no." I know that because my father's formal education ended in the equivalent of middle school, with the outbreak of World War II. He didn't finish school, but he'll always be the wisest man I've ever known. He never took an ELA. He didn't take AP classes. He didn't take the SAT. He missed out on the chance to spend half of fifth grade prepping for a single social studies test. Poor Papa. He got his wisdom the old-fashioned way. He lived in the world and learned from it. He spoke five languages. My children speak one, as do I. Far as I can tell, the schools count beans and test scores well, but do they count what matters? Do they even know what that is?
I often think I'm not much of a parent. I chafe at the routine of it. I don't care about what the schools care about. I've never liked dotting i's and crossing t's. I care about excellence, but not about excellent forms. I care about high standards, but not about test scores. One of my children is bored but will get through fine. The other is disabled, and running interference for him seems to be my life's work. My youngest is a square peg, if ever there was one, trying to fit into a round hole. School will kill her, if it doesn't kill me first. She will butt heads with almost everything about it. She will despise the restrictions, the boredom, the tedium, and her teachers will return the favor about how they feel about her. She will ask "too many" questions. She won't accept or like the few answers she gets. Her grades will reflect that. But on the bright side, if the world implodes between now and then, none of that will matter. We will all be brought down by the hubris of some. We will revert to our savage state, killing each other for crumbs. Finally, something will trump the need to score a perfect 2400 on the SAT, at least here on the North Shore.
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