So much social media influence with the Maycember concerns too. When my kids were in elementary and I did some PTA work, people would come to meetings with "I saw another elementary school on Facebook do..." (insert social media platform here). 25 years ago you didn't see your cousin's kids fun run with blow up bouncy houses and realize your schools fun run didn't have bouncy houses. Your school hosted a family dance in the HS cafeteria with a dj, and didn't watch a live feed from the school across town where the dance was at a country club with a photo booth. Your simple spirit week to keep everyone in school before the holiday break looked less than your nieces advent calendar of spirit days for the month of December. Rinse and repeat. I think polling about what things we love about school and what we could modify could go a long way to mitigate some of this. Our school's favorite event is the back to school picnic, bring your own dinner, chairs, and blanket, show up to school, there's an ice cream truck available, and usually someone brings some speakers and a playlist. Families come, teachers come and it inexpensively builds community. It's not social media flashy though.
Oooh I just want to chat for a long time about this outside of politics!! I feel it deeply in my soul. My kids’ expectations of what fun looks like is so outrageous. They think every day should be filled with something. We don’t live by any family and community where we live has been exceptionally hard to build— so my husband and I were just talking about how there is so much pressure on us all the time to create fun with our family because we don’t have people that we can just go chill at their house for an afternoon.
Also, when you have young kids who still believe in all the magical characters this cutting back is very hard! We have been struggling financially with my husband out of work for almost two years and if we could just tell them we have to cut back because of that it would be fine but turns out the Easter Bunny does not need money to fill baskets! And I have never gone crazy but typically try to fill their baskets with things they need for summer like swim suits, sandals, etc. It’s all SO expensive!
Outside of politics. My kids go to a Montessori school and wow we don't do anything and I love it. No birthday events, no holiday parties, no Spirit week. They have three events and a few optional gardening days. I love it. I am reminded every time these comes up.
I see the common thread between inside and outside politics! We all need someone to take something off our plate before putting something new on it! I served on organizing PTO for brand new intermediate school and I fought hard not to sell things. Instead we held a school dance (Mardi Gras with beads and masks) to build community among students who came from 3 different elementary schools.
100% - midterms and forward I want pothole politics from servant leaders. Maybe instead of age limits for politicians - if you can't shovel snow you are too old to serve?
I’m cackling at Beth’s Easter basket comment. This is the first year my daughter didn’t believe, previously during spring break I would fill the baskets and eggs and then leave them for my MIL to hide later. But this year we had a very low key egg hunt the weekend before we left and a small basket and it was so much less stressful
Regarding outside of politics and Maycember creep: I think it depends on the stage your kids are in. When our kids were in elementary, the spirit days, academic fairs, spring "musical," etc. were beyond overwhelming, especially as I finished my own teaching semester. Now we're super busy with two teenagers, but I WANT to be at everything. There are two kids and two parents, so we've told the kids we will always try to have at least one parent at every event. That has meant early mornings at show choir competitions during the six busy weeks of competition leading up to state and occasional late nights while we waited for results. (Thankfully, she can drive herself now, so we didn't have to worry about taking her to the high school at 5 AM and picking her up at midnight.) Our 8th grade son is currently a three sport athlete who is looking ahead to high school and is starting to consider keeping the three sports going, at least for freshman year. (He's finding success in long jump and is seeing stars...) Right now we're still driving to get him from track practice to football conditioning and basketball workouts when he has the time in his schedule. Oh, and my husband is coaching his flag football team on Sundays because they just have fun doing it.
Is it a lot? Yes, but I love watching my kids do what they love. Like Beth, I really enjoy the fellowship of time spent with parents who we have seen across sports and arts activities. We moved to our area five years ago and adult friendships are hard, but this has become a way for us to be a part of our community. And yes, three hours at a track meet to watch our son jump three times and run two races for a minute a piece is a lot of time, but I also love watching 100 teenagers hang out and support each other without their cell phones as they warm up, compete, and cheer for each other. Is there a better way for us to do this all as a society? I absolutely believe that there has to be a better way. But also, we need to find community where we can find it too.
Oh, and we still filled our teenagers' baskets this year, but I got candy at the last minute and that is all they got. Like Beth, I'm tired of junk. I'm done with it. I wish we all could be done with baskets and stockings and everything full of stuff that can't be consumed and enjoyed but instead just gets thrown away.
I resonated with Beth’s comments about 1) Democratic socialists seeming online like they *want* to make their tent smaller and cut people out, and 2) only seeing them campaign but not actually win and govern. I live in Michigan, and right now I am following the Democratic senate primary closely. I have this gut feeling about Abdul El-Sayed, and he just feels a bit too online to me. I am more drawn to Mallory McMorrow. But am I being old fashioned? I can’t tell if my gut feeling is an intuition to not trust the content-creator politicians, or if I’m not being forward-thinking enough.
Re: Mamdani, I’m newly in Philadelphia and the amount of goodwill our mayor would generate if she had correctly handled our big snow and if she really prioritized the pot hole situation is an enormous amount of goodwill. I know Philly and NYC are quite different, but we’ve got a lot of the same problems. And even if our mayor can’t do a lot bc of the PA state legislature, these smaller acts of service have such a big impact!! But the way Mayor Parker handled our biggest snow of the year absolutely destroyed any shred of goodwill anyone had for her. She seemed so unprepared!
Speaking of snow, re: the maycember of it all, I’m not a parent yet, but I am a youth minister and we had a few things that normally happen in January and February get postponed to March and April this year. I feel like that has really impacted how we’re all slogging to the end of the year.
My 4th grader is having a spirit week at school this week (I do not know why) but I was just looking at the list and it's all very doable, I don't have to buy anything special or create some crazy hair style or costume, but she still thinks it's fun.
Maycember for me is all about work obligations for both my husband and I + the planning for summer care part (ding ding ding, Sarah!). Our school keeps things simple. I’m also on the newly formed PTO board and we are too small to do much, but there’s a definite sense we don’t want to ask much of parents or teachers. As I learn more about what parent engagement looks like at our school (we have a fairly high population of parents who don’t speak English), I also want to remind everyone that the more things we communicate, the more things get lost! It’s not an easy to line to find, but if it were up to me we would do an audit of the information that gets shared and cut half of it. Not because it’s not important, but because when everything is important, nothing is important!
I have never done Easter baskets for my 7 and 3 year old and it’s extremely fine. Another benefit of an ethnically and religiously diverse school is that there are very few things that “everyone else” is doing!
My kids are elementary age so I still do baskets. But I try and mainly do things that I’ll need to buy them anyway. I put in a new swimsuit that will fit them for summer and some sort of summer shoe if they’ve grown out of sandals. Then I add in a favorite treat or two and call it good.
Loved the politics conversation in this episode. I too am feeling so inspired by Mamdani.
Outside of politics: I read the nyt opinion piece last week before hearing you all discuss it and I am glad to have somewhere to chime in! I had thoughts! It almost feels like there's two criticisms here, and personally, I think there's a major difference between them. The first is that we're doing too much. Too many gifts at every small holiday, too many over the top school spirit days (which in most cases come from the pta or student councils, not the teachers or admin), decorations for every major life event, ridiculous care packages being sent to our babies at summer camp, leprechaun traps…It's all too much and so much is being propelled by consumerism and creating so much waste!! But the second thing I hear criticism about is the time being asked of us as parents to attend our children's “things” - sports, band concerts, art shows, award ceremonies, etc. To me, this is entirely different from the first category. I don't need to be at every baseball game my kid plays in this season, but I do everything I can to be there because 1) I love watching my kid do something he loves 2) that baseball field/band concert is a community for our family, and right now we need those in person connections more than ever, and 3) giving my kid my time is a much greater gift than a basket of cheap gifts for Halloween. I understand that it is a LOT at the end of the school year, but my time is my greatest gift I can give my kids, and the return in investment to me is worthwhile. (BTW notice I didn't say a class party 🤪 that is a celebration for the kids and the teachers. I never feel bad skipping a class party!)
I'm not familiar with this "reality star", but saw the accouncement that he's challenging Pete Stauber (R- MN) for a Congressional seat.
Stauber is the one who introduced the bill to allow mining in the boundary waters. I've seen commentary about how Stauber has greatly underestimated "conservational republicans living in the (iron) range", but TBD if any Dem can take over a historically red area.
BETH! I did the same dang thing with Easter this year except it wasn’t nature it was Great Wolf Lodge in Co. Springs and my sweet baby’s birthday the day before and he turned 9. And Sarah I HEAR YOU on the Easter baskets he will miss out on but you guys. I have four children and we aren’t even religious what was I DOING every year? We had an amazing time together and not one kid has mentioned not having the hunt or the baskets but they’ve brought up how much fun we had many times. I don’t have stupid plastic eggs everywhere! It’s incredible!
At what age are parents *allowed* to not be at the practices? My daughter is 6 and her swim and gymnastics classes require the parents be present the whole time. I’m sure it’s a safety/liability thing but I remember getting dropped off for soccer, softball, piano, whatever, and my mom or dad coming back later having had 30 or 60 minutes to do their thing.
Idk when you’re allowed, but Abby Wambach wrote or said something about this recently that was basically like, parents shouldn’t be at practice, take the hour to do something for yourself! So even if you can’t leave, definitely bring a book or something.
Yeah, I usually bring a knitting project and listen to an audiobook or podcast. But I can tell she’s got half an eye on me a lot of the time and is “performing” for me and I’m like, that’s not why you’re here!
And this morning her school’s weekly newsletter promoted the end of year dance for 3rd-5th graders (so luckily not a thing for her yet) where parents’ attendance is required, no drop-offs allowed…and my head exploded a little bit.
So much social media influence with the Maycember concerns too. When my kids were in elementary and I did some PTA work, people would come to meetings with "I saw another elementary school on Facebook do..." (insert social media platform here). 25 years ago you didn't see your cousin's kids fun run with blow up bouncy houses and realize your schools fun run didn't have bouncy houses. Your school hosted a family dance in the HS cafeteria with a dj, and didn't watch a live feed from the school across town where the dance was at a country club with a photo booth. Your simple spirit week to keep everyone in school before the holiday break looked less than your nieces advent calendar of spirit days for the month of December. Rinse and repeat. I think polling about what things we love about school and what we could modify could go a long way to mitigate some of this. Our school's favorite event is the back to school picnic, bring your own dinner, chairs, and blanket, show up to school, there's an ice cream truck available, and usually someone brings some speakers and a playlist. Families come, teachers come and it inexpensively builds community. It's not social media flashy though.
Oooh I just want to chat for a long time about this outside of politics!! I feel it deeply in my soul. My kids’ expectations of what fun looks like is so outrageous. They think every day should be filled with something. We don’t live by any family and community where we live has been exceptionally hard to build— so my husband and I were just talking about how there is so much pressure on us all the time to create fun with our family because we don’t have people that we can just go chill at their house for an afternoon.
Also, when you have young kids who still believe in all the magical characters this cutting back is very hard! We have been struggling financially with my husband out of work for almost two years and if we could just tell them we have to cut back because of that it would be fine but turns out the Easter Bunny does not need money to fill baskets! And I have never gone crazy but typically try to fill their baskets with things they need for summer like swim suits, sandals, etc. It’s all SO expensive!
Outside of politics. My kids go to a Montessori school and wow we don't do anything and I love it. No birthday events, no holiday parties, no Spirit week. They have three events and a few optional gardening days. I love it. I am reminded every time these comes up.
I see the common thread between inside and outside politics! We all need someone to take something off our plate before putting something new on it! I served on organizing PTO for brand new intermediate school and I fought hard not to sell things. Instead we held a school dance (Mardi Gras with beads and masks) to build community among students who came from 3 different elementary schools.
100% - midterms and forward I want pothole politics from servant leaders. Maybe instead of age limits for politicians - if you can't shovel snow you are too old to serve?
I’m cackling at Beth’s Easter basket comment. This is the first year my daughter didn’t believe, previously during spring break I would fill the baskets and eggs and then leave them for my MIL to hide later. But this year we had a very low key egg hunt the weekend before we left and a small basket and it was so much less stressful
Regarding outside of politics and Maycember creep: I think it depends on the stage your kids are in. When our kids were in elementary, the spirit days, academic fairs, spring "musical," etc. were beyond overwhelming, especially as I finished my own teaching semester. Now we're super busy with two teenagers, but I WANT to be at everything. There are two kids and two parents, so we've told the kids we will always try to have at least one parent at every event. That has meant early mornings at show choir competitions during the six busy weeks of competition leading up to state and occasional late nights while we waited for results. (Thankfully, she can drive herself now, so we didn't have to worry about taking her to the high school at 5 AM and picking her up at midnight.) Our 8th grade son is currently a three sport athlete who is looking ahead to high school and is starting to consider keeping the three sports going, at least for freshman year. (He's finding success in long jump and is seeing stars...) Right now we're still driving to get him from track practice to football conditioning and basketball workouts when he has the time in his schedule. Oh, and my husband is coaching his flag football team on Sundays because they just have fun doing it.
Is it a lot? Yes, but I love watching my kids do what they love. Like Beth, I really enjoy the fellowship of time spent with parents who we have seen across sports and arts activities. We moved to our area five years ago and adult friendships are hard, but this has become a way for us to be a part of our community. And yes, three hours at a track meet to watch our son jump three times and run two races for a minute a piece is a lot of time, but I also love watching 100 teenagers hang out and support each other without their cell phones as they warm up, compete, and cheer for each other. Is there a better way for us to do this all as a society? I absolutely believe that there has to be a better way. But also, we need to find community where we can find it too.
Oh, and we still filled our teenagers' baskets this year, but I got candy at the last minute and that is all they got. Like Beth, I'm tired of junk. I'm done with it. I wish we all could be done with baskets and stockings and everything full of stuff that can't be consumed and enjoyed but instead just gets thrown away.
I resonated with Beth’s comments about 1) Democratic socialists seeming online like they *want* to make their tent smaller and cut people out, and 2) only seeing them campaign but not actually win and govern. I live in Michigan, and right now I am following the Democratic senate primary closely. I have this gut feeling about Abdul El-Sayed, and he just feels a bit too online to me. I am more drawn to Mallory McMorrow. But am I being old fashioned? I can’t tell if my gut feeling is an intuition to not trust the content-creator politicians, or if I’m not being forward-thinking enough.
Re: Mamdani, I’m newly in Philadelphia and the amount of goodwill our mayor would generate if she had correctly handled our big snow and if she really prioritized the pot hole situation is an enormous amount of goodwill. I know Philly and NYC are quite different, but we’ve got a lot of the same problems. And even if our mayor can’t do a lot bc of the PA state legislature, these smaller acts of service have such a big impact!! But the way Mayor Parker handled our biggest snow of the year absolutely destroyed any shred of goodwill anyone had for her. She seemed so unprepared!
Speaking of snow, re: the maycember of it all, I’m not a parent yet, but I am a youth minister and we had a few things that normally happen in January and February get postponed to March and April this year. I feel like that has really impacted how we’re all slogging to the end of the year.
My 4th grader is having a spirit week at school this week (I do not know why) but I was just looking at the list and it's all very doable, I don't have to buy anything special or create some crazy hair style or costume, but she still thinks it's fun.
Monday - pajamas or comfy clothes
Tuesday - wear only one color
Wednesday - Sports or jersey day
Thursday - Vacation or beach day.
Maycember for me is all about work obligations for both my husband and I + the planning for summer care part (ding ding ding, Sarah!). Our school keeps things simple. I’m also on the newly formed PTO board and we are too small to do much, but there’s a definite sense we don’t want to ask much of parents or teachers. As I learn more about what parent engagement looks like at our school (we have a fairly high population of parents who don’t speak English), I also want to remind everyone that the more things we communicate, the more things get lost! It’s not an easy to line to find, but if it were up to me we would do an audit of the information that gets shared and cut half of it. Not because it’s not important, but because when everything is important, nothing is important!
I have never done Easter baskets for my 7 and 3 year old and it’s extremely fine. Another benefit of an ethnically and religiously diverse school is that there are very few things that “everyone else” is doing!
My kids are elementary age so I still do baskets. But I try and mainly do things that I’ll need to buy them anyway. I put in a new swimsuit that will fit them for summer and some sort of summer shoe if they’ve grown out of sandals. Then I add in a favorite treat or two and call it good.
Loved the politics conversation in this episode. I too am feeling so inspired by Mamdani.
Outside of politics: I read the nyt opinion piece last week before hearing you all discuss it and I am glad to have somewhere to chime in! I had thoughts! It almost feels like there's two criticisms here, and personally, I think there's a major difference between them. The first is that we're doing too much. Too many gifts at every small holiday, too many over the top school spirit days (which in most cases come from the pta or student councils, not the teachers or admin), decorations for every major life event, ridiculous care packages being sent to our babies at summer camp, leprechaun traps…It's all too much and so much is being propelled by consumerism and creating so much waste!! But the second thing I hear criticism about is the time being asked of us as parents to attend our children's “things” - sports, band concerts, art shows, award ceremonies, etc. To me, this is entirely different from the first category. I don't need to be at every baseball game my kid plays in this season, but I do everything I can to be there because 1) I love watching my kid do something he loves 2) that baseball field/band concert is a community for our family, and right now we need those in person connections more than ever, and 3) giving my kid my time is a much greater gift than a basket of cheap gifts for Halloween. I understand that it is a LOT at the end of the school year, but my time is my greatest gift I can give my kids, and the return in investment to me is worthwhile. (BTW notice I didn't say a class party 🤪 that is a celebration for the kids and the teachers. I never feel bad skipping a class party!)
I'm not familiar with this "reality star", but saw the accouncement that he's challenging Pete Stauber (R- MN) for a Congressional seat.
Stauber is the one who introduced the bill to allow mining in the boundary waters. I've seen commentary about how Stauber has greatly underestimated "conservational republicans living in the (iron) range", but TBD if any Dem can take over a historically red area.
Vote Luke Gulbranson for Congress | Luke Gulbranson for Congress https://share.google/WX0IB6cq3LfBJpUlQ
BETH! I did the same dang thing with Easter this year except it wasn’t nature it was Great Wolf Lodge in Co. Springs and my sweet baby’s birthday the day before and he turned 9. And Sarah I HEAR YOU on the Easter baskets he will miss out on but you guys. I have four children and we aren’t even religious what was I DOING every year? We had an amazing time together and not one kid has mentioned not having the hunt or the baskets but they’ve brought up how much fun we had many times. I don’t have stupid plastic eggs everywhere! It’s incredible!
At what age are parents *allowed* to not be at the practices? My daughter is 6 and her swim and gymnastics classes require the parents be present the whole time. I’m sure it’s a safety/liability thing but I remember getting dropped off for soccer, softball, piano, whatever, and my mom or dad coming back later having had 30 or 60 minutes to do their thing.
Idk when you’re allowed, but Abby Wambach wrote or said something about this recently that was basically like, parents shouldn’t be at practice, take the hour to do something for yourself! So even if you can’t leave, definitely bring a book or something.
Yeah, I usually bring a knitting project and listen to an audiobook or podcast. But I can tell she’s got half an eye on me a lot of the time and is “performing” for me and I’m like, that’s not why you’re here!
And this morning her school’s weekly newsletter promoted the end of year dance for 3rd-5th graders (so luckily not a thing for her yet) where parents’ attendance is required, no drop-offs allowed…and my head exploded a little bit.