Aces

 

I wear an awful lot of hats. Possibly, the weightiest one is that of mother. It’s a huge part of my life, so it’s not surprising that I’ve written a great deal about motherhood. It is joy and pride, as well as sorrow. It is hard work, and incredible reward. Mothering small children is simple. Not easy, but fairly basic. You make sure they are nourished and clothed, and you start to teach them skills like sleeping through the night on their own, expressing themselves in socially acceptable ways, and treating other people decently. You work out household rules and discipline tactics. You try not to lose yourself in the process – you want to be more than just Mommy.

In terms of the daily grind, big kids win – no contest. They bathe and dress themselves, and do their own hair. They get their own snacks – and even their own meals (though not every day, unless you don’t mind them coming down with scurvy). They do their own laundry. They can manage most of their homework on their own. I have not encountered many people who hate homework more than me. Your kindergartener is adorable, believe me – but I’m done coaxing kids to sound out words, pushing them to read and write in french, and proofing penmanship, and I like it that way. When I am rushing to slap some dinner down in front of my hungry family at the end of a long day, I can ask Fiona or Bridget to set the table, take and fill drink orders, chop veggies and meat, throw a salad together. They empty the dishwasher. They mop and vacuum. We don’t have to pay for daycare. We can play board games more complicated than Chutes & Ladders and Hungry Hungry Hippos. We appreciate many of the same foods, songs and movies. They have a wicked sense of humour, strong opinions, interesting takes on the world. The pleasure of their company outweighs the work and fuss.

All that being said, sometimes I feel like time is moving too fast … For one thing, people love to tell me how awful my life will be once I have two older kids. Just wait, they say. You’ll be nothing to them. They will ignore everything you say and do until they’re about 25. Though there have been challenges, neither girl has been as horrible as these assholes seem to hope they’ll be. Turning 30 didn’t bother me. Pretty sure 40 won’t phase me, either. But Fiona turning 13 this summer? That has hit me hard. I have a teenager. Yesterday, Fiona and Bridget returned to school after a long, lovely summer break (yes, I know, I owe everyone a blow-by-blow of our road trip – I’ll get to that). Grade 8 and grade 6! Back-to-school is bittersweet for me. I’ve never been one of those parents who can’t wait for September. But I am very excited for the girls. They’ve been planning their look and their moves and their whole damn school year for days. They woke up like firecrackers, and they couldn’t stop grinning and giggling. But I am also sad. Each school year brings challenges and opportunities that will change them utterly. I will never see these kids, as they are right now, again. They’re gone the moment they set foot in the classroom on the first day, and they’re never coming back.

Yet, when we hang out together, watching TV or reading, they both want to sit next to me. One on either side. They lean heads on my shoulder, they sneakily sniff my hair. Their hands creep their way into mine. They need just a few minutes, talking to me about their dreams and joys and frustrations, before we say goodnight. Every morning, they come find me, still warm from the bed, for a welcome-to-the-new-day hug. I have not lost two cuddlers – I have gained two young ladies, self-sufficient and smart and sarcastic, who still need my hugs. They may be as big as me, but they still need me. Everything’s still coming up aces for this mother.

Congratulations on getting through the easiest part of your life?

The youth and I do not always get along well, it’s true. There are alot of things I just don’t understand about how they do their thang. Fake glasses with thick frames, when all I ever wanted to do with my glasses was get rid of them. All that eyeliner. High-waisted shorts. Man buns. Endless selfies under layers of filters. Texting each other when they’re in the same room. The strange popularity of obnoxious YouTubers. I will stop right there, as I don’t want to sound like a shirty old cuss. Now, if everybody will just get off my lawn and pull up their pants, I’ll get on with this rare post in support of young people.

It’s graduation season. All over the world, people are closing the book on one chapter of their life and moving on to another. Our darling Fiona is leaving the familiarity and security of her school of the past five years for highschool at Notre Dame. With the added fuss of end-of-the-year activities, including uniform fittings and a leaving ceremony (because apparently sixth grade grad is a thing), our June’s been ridiculously busy. She’s excited and nervous, all at once. Big changes are coming. Every spring, for several years now, my Facebook newsfeed contains at least one person sharing the following meme:

It’s made me snicker every time, I admit. However, it’s not true. Being a kid is actually really hard.

Your personality is still forming – and so are those of your peers. This means that every day you make a conscious decision as to how to present yourself to the world, and that world consists mainly of people who are too immature to respect what you’re offering. Popularity occupies a disproportionate level of importance, and is based heavily on things that are beyond your control. Good hair. Clear skin. The right (i.e. trendy and expensive) clothes. Smooth moves. I’m pretty sure teenagers have not changed that much since my own teen years – which means smooth moves still elude many of them. You have strong opinions, but they are laughed at by many of your peers and dismissed by parents and teachers. What do you know? Talk to me again when you’ve been around the block a few times …. If you put out, you’re a slut – and guys like you while girls scorn you. If you abstain from sex, you’re a prude – and girls like you while guys don’t bother with you. If you’re queer, you face the heavy task of trusting people with that deeply personal piece of information – and they might not react well. Everyone probably assumes you’re straight. You’ve been alive less than 20 years, but people are asking you what you want to do with the next 30 or 40 years of your life. You are constantly being tested on what you know, even though alot of what you know is new – and there’s more of it every day. The results of these tests determine whether you can follow the career path you’ve told everyone you want to follow. You’re being evaluated by just one institution’s accepted metrics – yet you’re being told that you have to measure up or you’re going nowhere in life. You’re facing years of testing, development, uncertainty – and debt.

Not all of you are going to make it. Failure, bad choices, heartache, unintended pregnancy, mental illness, drugs, crime, and suicide stalk you like wolves. Your generation is the one that is most vulnerable to all of these things. If you’ve made it to graduation, fab for you – it wasn’t easy, and you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Here’s to your future!

 

Ladies and gentleman, it’s Talent(less) Show Season!

School wrapped up last week. This is always a welcome thing in our house. Last year, around this time, I wrote about how happy the end of school makes me. Ryan and I have cobbled together a few options for the summer weeks we need to cover because – alas – the office does not share a schedule with school. I used to righteously proclaim that becoming a teacher just to have summers off is wrong. Bullshit. Nowadays, I’d take that deal in an instant, and I wouldn’t feel the slightest tinge of remorse. However, I like my regular paycheques, and going back to school just sounds like alot of fuss …. So, day camps it is! I have this week off, though, and I used part of it yesterday to take Fiona and Bridget to Calypso – and that was a fantastic way to kick off summer! Our collective favourite was the Canyon Rafting ride, which we did seven times. We all slept like babies last night …. Which, as the kids pointed out, does not make much sense. Babies are known for not sleeping. So, um, I guess we slept like people who’ve spent seven hours at a water park.

Back to the end of the school year …. Now that Fiona and Bridget are officially big kids, it’s not just about digging down to the dark, nasty bottom of a backpack, looking at a year’s worth of scribbles complete with run-on-sentence narration, and being able to serve all the peanut butter you feel like serving. It’s also about talent shows. This year, there were two – one at their school, and one at their after-school program. Talent shows are the ugly child of childhood pageantry: adorable, but with a face only a mother could love. Well, there are a few fathers in the audience, and the odd grandparent – but the crowd is composed primarily of mothers. Children don’t have to take a year’s worth of lessons (or, indeed, any lessons at all) in any discipline to enter. They just have to write their name on a list, and – TA-DA – they are performers!

There are always a few singers who can’t sing. There is the odd comedy routine which may or may not contain anything even the slightest bit funny. This year, there was a pair of boys who did card tricks, and their act was cool. There was a kid who played the harp. Yes, the harp. His father, whose hair and complexion appeared to be inspired by Edward Scissorhands, set up the large instrument just before the show. The harp kid’s name was, of course, Malcolm. What else? Malcolm’s harp playing was unimpressive, but it was much better than last year’s oddest musical offering: twenty-three kids plonking away on plastic ukeleles and yowling “You Are My Sunshine”. Whenever a kid plays a musical instrument at a talent show, I always play a private guessing game as to whether the kid has physically encountered their chosen instrument before the show …. I feel that, most of the time, the answer is “no, nay, never”. (If you just mentally roared “right up your kilt”, I’m sure you’re not alone ….)

The majority of acts are choreographed dance routines to “clean” versions of pop songs. Hence, Fiona and two friends of hers danced to a version of “Uptown Funk” that did not include the words “damn” or “liquour”. I was unsuccessful in hiding my amusement when a whole gym’s worth of children cheerfully sang the real lyrics anyway. “Uptown Funk” being one of the most popular songs of the past few months, Fiona and her friends were not the only ones using it in their act. I watched no less than four “Uptown Funk” interpretations in the two talent shows it was my dubious privilege to attend. As much as I like that song, it was more than enough for me. A girl from one of the other groups cheerfully informed me that they were calling themselves the “uptown funkers”. I was a tongue-slip away from saying “well, I guess that makes me a mother-funker”, but (thankfully) my mouth behaved itself for once. Fiona and her friends, in matching fedoras and striped t-shirts, surprised me by giving a great performance. I am one of my daughters’ two biggest cheerleaders, but I am more realistic than they are when it comes to their own abilities to dazzle. This is as it should be; I am not looking forward to the end of their innocent belief that they can do anything. Those matching shirts were a source of angst for weeks. Fiona worried aloud almost daily about the fact that she and her friends did not own anything matching. I offered to take her and her friends shopping. This didn’t happen, because Fiona declared that she and her friends had decided on an outfit that her friends already owned. So, off with us to Walmart to find the outfit her friends had described to her. We couldn’t find it, of course, and Fiona was nearly hyperventilating as she declared that we had to go to some other Walmart, and if that didn’t do it we’d go to another, and on and on. I spied matching t-shirts, $4 each. In desperation, I said “I will buy these shirts for you and your two friends”. Basically, I paid $12 to bail myself out of a Saturday afternoon spent in every Walmart in eastern Ontario. Bridget’s role in the school talent show was an easier one: she was singing “Best Day of My Life” with a choir, and the song was one they had already performed at a choral celebration. No practice needed, and no shopping, either.

They both sang in their after-school program talent show – Fiona and a friend singing “Hot N Cold” and Bridget and a friend singing “Budapest”. Fiona has decent timing, and Bridget can carry a tune. Sadly, they did not magically meld into one fine singer – but they weren’t terrible, either. The show contained some awful singing, feather-dancers who dropped their feathers multiple times and three breakdancers who couldn’t breakdance. Looking around the room, though, I saw the same thing I had seen at the school talent show the day before: beaming, happy parents. It was easy to figure out which parent’s child was performing. It was the parent whose rapt attention was focused on the stage, as if wearing blinders, nodding or mouthing along (or both), glowing with pride. We all know our kids’ limitations (well, most of us do, anyway – there are always a few who think they’ve birthed the second coming), but we don’t care. We showed up anyway, and – for the few minutes they were performing – there was only one thing we could see. The sweet, shining face of our son or daughter, our one-in-six-billion. And those minutes were well worth all the stumbling, caterwauling, kerplunking and tooth-grinding of the alleged talent show. On the drive home, Fiona and Bridget mused over what they would do in next year’s talent show. Mercifully, between now and then, there’s a whole summer to not talk about it.

In defence of the handcuffing of Daniel Ten Oever ….

I’m fairly certain most Ottawa readers, and possibly many readers from other parts of the country – and the world – know about Daniel Ten Oever. He’s the nine-year-old autistic boy who was handcuffed at St. Jerome Catholic School after smashing a toilet tank lid and then throwing chairs around the principal’s office. I first heard about him through this Ottawa Citizen article on February 20. His parents, Dan Ten Oever and Stephanie Huck, are understandably upset over the incident. The account of the school and the police officer differ slightly from Daniel’s version of the story, but it has been agreed by all parties that Daniel was engaging in destructive and dangerous behaviour before being handcuffed.

Mr. Ten Oever and Ms. Huck are demanding all records regarding the school’s interactions with Daniel, and have refused to allow him to return to school until they receive and review the records. They are considering legal action. They are supported by the parents of an eleven-year-old boy who was handcuffed after the same behaviour, throwing a chair, and the parents of a fourteen-year-old boy who was charged with assault after attacking his principal in the hall of his school. He ran at the principal, and hit her with enough force to knock her over. He was approaching her aggressively a second time, while she was still on the ground, but was re-directed by the vice principal. He fled the scene, and later was coaxed by his grandfather to get in his car and come home. They are joined by a pair of heavy-hitters, both emotionally and legally: Restoring Justice, a group focused on creating public awareness on institutional child abuse, and Autism Ontario. Restoring Justice has already begun calling on parents of children with disabilities to come forward with any questionable treatment of their children by schools.

This whole story, and many other similar stories – heartbreaking. I feel sorry for Daniel’s parents, and all the parents like them, who struggle to give their children with special needs the care and education they require. I feel sorry for their beautiful boy, who faces a lifetime of trying so hard to understand and be understood – and every other Daniel out there. But, no matter how many times I think about the events that have led the family to this point, a question remains: what else could the school and the police have done?

St. Jerome has considerable experience dealing with Daniel. School staff have been trained in non-violent crisis prevention. Daniel somehow slipped out of their control, and they did what anyone would do when there is potential for a person to injure themselves or others: they summoned the help of the police. Restoring Dignity claims that the staff was improperly trained in de-escalating crises like the one Daniel was experiencing. How can they make this statement if they were not there to witness the staff’s attempts to help Daniel? Autism Ontario claims that “bad behaviour” by autistic children should not be “punished”. The police had no knowledge of Daniel’s issues or history. They obviously could not sit down for a heart-to-heart with people who know Daniel while the child raged and broke things and posed a threat to himself and others. Their first priority, in any situation, is to secure the environment. The restraining tools at the disposal of police officers? Handcuffs. They were not punishing Daniel. They were trying to keep him, and others, safe.

Fiona is nine. She’s small for her age, and has arms like Olive Oyl. But, if she wanted to, she could cause alot of damage. She could grievously injure a very large adult, if she were bent on it. What if the staff of St. Jerome continued trying to contain the situation until Daniel, or some other person, was injured? What if the police had arrived, attempted to calm him through other means, and were unsuccessful – resulting in tragedy, whether of small or large scale? I have a feeling that Daniel’s parents, Restoring Dignity and Autism Ontario would be singing a different tune – though no less angry or litigious.

I am not ignorant. I know that police officers are only human, that there are good cops and bad cops, that there have been – and will be – many cases of inexcusable police brutality. I know that some officers swagger around with their badge like it lifts them above the law. Bringing those people to accountability is important. But that’s not what happened here. A frightened, confused, disabled nine-year-old – and the people around him – needed to be safe, and the police were there to do it. The groups raising money to bring legal measures against the school and the police should consider putting that money into autism awareness and research, and increasing specially trained school staff numbers. That’s what will really help Daniel.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be assholes!

Needless to say (but I will say it, because I have to say all the things), anyone who’s lived among other humans has encountered, is dealing with or will meet at least one asshole. Because they’re everywhere …. Tailgating, then angrily revving up to pass you whether it’s safe or not, then squeezing in front of you. Just so they can get wherever they’re going a minute faster. Cutting in line at the grocery store, then feigning innocence when you say “excuse me, I was in line already”. They know damn well what they did – they were just hoping you wouldn’t have the cojones to call them on it. Pitching a fit at the DMV because they don’t have the required paperwork with them, while the people in line behind them roll their eyes and sigh. Five minutes on the website would have told them everything they needed to know, but they’d rather spend fifteen minutes berating some poor schmuck who has no control over the rules and cannot escape the asshole’s rage because this is her job. Monopolizing the teacher well past their allotted ten minutes, knowing that the teacher has twenty other sets of parents waiting to talk to him. Because, of course, there’s only one child who matters: theirs. Stealing from the office kitchen. They make the same salary as everyone else, but they somehow feel entitled to a free coffee, or even someone else’s sandwich. Neighbours who clear their driveway by dumping the snow onto yours. People who don’t flush. I. Can’t. Even. with the people who don’t flush.

I always knew of the existence of assholes. What I didn’t know is how early they take their first steps down the path to full-blown assholery …. until I became a mother. Fiona was all of one year old when a kid at least three years older than her snatched her pail and shovel at the playground, declaring that he needed it and she wasn’t old enough to use it anyway. At about the same age, two years later, Bridget was discovered by a sadistic little girl who – though older, taller and heavier – insisted on riding her, horsey-style, while she wailed. No matter how many times I pulled that brat off her, it was inevitable that I would have to do it again before the playgroup session ended. I can’t count how many times both girls have watched longingly while some kid hogged the swings, pretending oblivion to the fact that other kids wanted a turn. Nearly every time we’ve visited a McDonald’s, I’ve cringed while watching small ones jostled and toppled by kids who are old enough to know that they should be more careful – and, in some cases, too old to be using the play area anyway.

The most bountiful source, by far, of assholes has been school …. There was the girl who slammed Fiona’s head against the school bus window, and ripped the tassel off her toque. The boy who took Fiona’s beloved cowboy hat from her and danced around with it high in the air while she cried. This is the same boy who, horrifyingly, stuck another kid’s finger in the pencil sharpener and shaved off a layer of skin. Cue the theme from “Psycho”. The girl who, when asked if Fiona could join her group, let her eyes slide around, counting the kids already involved, then protested that Fiona was one too many because this was a game for seven. The boy who knocked Bridget down from behind, causing her to skin out both palms and both knees. The gang of sixth-graders who plagued the schoolyard last year, teasing younger kids about everything from the toys they were playing with to their hair colour, until the principle blew his stack in front of all the students and ordered the jerks out of his school (he earned my respect that day, and – presumably – the love of every underdog from junior kindergarten to the top). While we’re talking about sixth-graders, the sixth-grade boys who thought it was funny to ask the little girls on the bus if they’d like to have sex. This was confusing and upsetting for kids who, of course, didn’t even know what sex is. Who does that? The girl who just had to tell Fiona that she shouldn’t be wearing her Mario-and-Luigi shirt for her school picture. (I asked Fiona what this girl was wearing that was so special, and she couldn’t remember. But she has never forgotten how this girl made her feel.) The girl who heard Fiona humming and said “um, no offense, but you can’t sing”. Did she wake up that morning with the goal of trampling somebody else’s joy, or was it a random act of cruelty? (And why is it that, whenever someone says “no offense”, they follow it with something that couldn’t be anything but offensive?)

Then, there is what might just be the worst …. A disabled man – we’ll call him Jack – working as a helper at the after-school program the girls attend has been moved on to a different program. Why? Because the kids made fun of him, lied to him about the program rules, and openly defied him because they knew he was powerless to do anything about it. This upset Fiona, as she is fond of Jack. It confused Bridget. I didn’t know what to say. I tried to put a positive spin on it, saying that maybe Jack would be happier in a program where he is respected, treated well and can contribute properly. Neither of them were buying it. Finally, I just said “you know, I’m going to be honest – some kids are just assholes”. Bridget protested that she never disrespected Jack or teased him, and I said “exactly – because you’re not an asshole, and if I ever find out that either of you has become one, I will make your life very difficult indeed”. This wasn’t news to them; they already know that. So what’s wrong with these other kids? What’s wrong with their parents? Being a jerk shines through just like being sweet – I don’t see how they could be ignorant of their children’s atrocious behaviour. How can there be so many little assholes out there, making other people miserable? I don’t know. I’m frustrated, and sad for both my children and the assholes. Their world is supposed to be better than the one I grew up in, but I’m pretty sure it’s worse.

And now, because I teased you with my title – well, if you’ve got good taste in music, I did – here’s Waylon and Willie. The song is accompanied by charming pictures of cowboys, and children who want to be cowboys, and none of them look like assholes. Maybe it’s time to change the song. Go ahead and let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Don’t know what the economic prospects look like for that particular career choice, but if it makes them happy …. Just don’t let them be assholes. There are more-than-enough of them already.

Update: Just today, at the after-school program, a girl told Fiona that she couldn’t play in the snow fort with her and some other kids because her name is “ugly”. None of the other kids stood up for Fiona, who cried. Presumably none of them wanted to have their names called ugly. How timely. Thank you, little asshole, for illustrating my blog post for me, and giving me another reason to post it. 

School’s out! Or, if you will, Hallelujah! They kind of mean the same thing to me right now.

Today is the last day of school until September, and I couldn’t be happier. No, not they – I. Alright, I suppose Fiona and Bridget will be happy, too – but not like me. I am dog-hanging-out-the-car-window happy. Toddler-allowed-to-plunge-dimpled-hands-into-the-toilet happy. Handel’s-“Messiah”-soaring-in-the-background-while-I-toss-hundred-dollar-bills-at-passers-by happy. Indeed, I could come up with descriptions of how happy I am for several paragraphs more. My joy at not having to deal with school for a whole two blessified months knows no bounds.

Before you roll your eyes and accuse me of wild exaggeration, here’s my list of reasons for being lifetime-supply-of-Cool-Ranch-Doritos happy …. (See? I could do this all day long!)

1) No more homework! Any parent who has ever stood wearily over the shoulder of their maxed-out son or daughter, doing the delicate dance of not feeding the kid the answers, while trying to ensure that the kid finishes the homework and goes to bed before we all lose our ever-loving minds, will appreciate where I’m coming from. Our girls are only in grades three and one – yet, Ryan and I have spent many miserable evenings patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) plowing through assignments that seem to have no roots in their classroom activities and are above their heads. We try to take a hands-off approach consisting of gentle supervision and assistance in the thought process, since the homework is not actually for our benefit – it’s for the kids. This results in two outcomes. The first is that the homework takes a long, long, long time to complete. The second is that the completed work is born proudly off to school, only to look deeply inadequate next to the work of some little twit whose parents obviously did the assignment themselves.

2) Got school supplies? Not enough school supplies! It doesn’t matter how well you outfit the kids in September, they will lose everything you bought for them.

“Mom, I need a pencil.” “But I bought you 835 of them just four months ago.” “I know, but I can’t find them. Can I use the pen in your purse?”

“I don’t have scissors, and I need them for this Friday’s art project!” “What do you mean, you don’t have scissors? I bought you scissors for school.” “I know, but I lent them to Madysonne / Mac’kenzie / Destinii, and she didn’t bring them back.”

“Dear parents of Ms. Screamer’s grade two class,

Our classroom is currently out of glue sticks, erasers, kleenex and general happiness. If you could spare some to send to school with your child, it would be greatly appreciated. Also, we’ve noticed that alot of the children seem to have wet socks regularly. If you could put a pair of spare socks in the backpack to replace the ones you put there originally, which have mysteriously disappeared, it would make playtime more fun.

Sincerely, Ms. Screamer and her grade two class”

I love shopping for school supplies in the fall. Fresh stacks of paper, bright new crayons with perfect tips, shiny scissors and oh-so-many glue sticks – plus new shoes and a fun backpack? I geek out on that. Buying it in February because it somehow wasn’t enough, for reasons that are never clearly explained, and it’s no longer in a colourful display with a big back-to-school sign hanging over it? Not so much.

3) Which leads me to money. Money for that new agenda, money for fundraisers, money for field trips, money for the book fair, money for pizza lunches – and all them fancy chocolate bars. It will be nice not to be asked for money for two solid months, either by Fiona and Bridget, who have been whipped up into a lather of excitement over whatever money-slurping endeavor to which they’ve been introduced, or by a letter from Ms. Screamer.

4) No more school bus! Any parent whose kids take the bus to school is aware that the bus is a jungle. (Isn’t that an awesome song? G&R = awesome-sauce. You don’t agree? I don’t care, remember?) It’s little more than a mobile holding pen for a wide assortment of children, from the meekest mice to the ones who could be voted most-likely-to-end-up-in-juvie by their class (and every other class). There’s only one adult present, and he or she is driving – unable to intervene, or even see half of what’s going on. The cherry on top of this unfortunate sundae is that Fiona’s and Bridget’s bus driver for the past year is, by all accounts, certifiably insane. He mutters and twitches, and yells alot. I don’t want Psychotic Psam to lose his job, and I might be just like him if I had to drive a busload of brats anywhere at all even for one day – but I really don’t think driving a school bus is his true calling.

6) Bye-bye, bullies! Ever since Fiona’s first day of junior kindergarten, we have had to deal with bullies. That kid who’s a foot taller than everyone in the class and can’t seem to keep his hands to himself. That kid who must be raised by people conducting psychological experiments involving isolation, cattle prods and food as a reward for being dispicable to your fellow humans. Fiona has always been friendly to everyone, and therefore she’s a target. Bridget was quiet and kept to herself, so she was a target. Now she’s outgoing and one of the class leaders – naturally, she’s a target. Neither of the girls has ever been the sole concern of a bully, luckily – but they’ve occasionally been at the mercy of a kid who’s nasty to everyone most of the time. Fiona’s class a couple of years ago included a boy who took things from her and broke them just to make her cry. He also stuck someone else’s finger in his pencil sharpener and twisted off a layer of skin. Last year, Bridget had a boy in her class who was, more or less, the spawn of Satan. To protect his identity, we won’t call him by his real name. We’ll call him Lil’ Shit. Lil’ Shit was rough. He elbowed Bridget, he pushed her, he hit her. Lil’ Shit did this to everyone. One day, he shoved her from behind. She fell hard on her hands and knees and ended up with four big scabs. Not long after that, she tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, she slugged him in the gut. She tearfully confessed this to me later. I experienced several emotions. I felt frustrated that every class has at least one kid like that and schools can’t do much about it, and kids are trapped in all sorts of situations with these little assholes. I felt sad that Bridget, who is not a violent child, felt like her only option was to sucker-punch Lil’ Shit. And, yes, I felt good that she picked up for herself – I cheered for her on the inside. Now that they’re a little older, the boys don’t bother the girls, but other girls do. When girls bully, though, it’s usually a quieter affair. Gossip. Cruel nicknames. Exclusion. There’s a trio of grade sixers who patrol the playground, looking for younger kids to pick on, and they gang up on their victims. Fiona and her friends have had to stand up to The Bitches Three more than once, which takes alot of courage if you’re three years younger than your tormentors. (And who does that? Who picks on kids who are three years younger? Can’t wait to see what gifts these beauties will bestow on society when they’re all grown up.) The girls’ daycare doesn’t seem to have as much of that going on. Maybe it’s because daycares have a clear set of rules everyone has to follow, laid out in a contract – and they reserve the right to kick kids out if their behaviour hurts other kids. Schools have to give everyone a shot, and you have to be really bad to get booted out.

7) I can put whatever I want in their lunches. For a while, Bridget was allergic to eggs. Have you any idea how many foods have eggs in them? (Answer: pretty much everything that’s tasty.) It was difficult to find things she could eat and enjoy, and it was even more difficult to find whole meals for our family that didn’t involve eggs. Parents of children with severe food allergies have my sympathy. However, there are few things easier to make and more palatable to a child than a PB&J – and I will be making alot of them for the girls’ lunches this summer. It’s also not as important to give them a meticulously measured amount of each food group when they’re not going to be using their brain all day. Cotton candy for the morning snack, a PB&J and a cheese string for lunch, and a Joe Louis for the afternoon snack? Why not? It’s summer!

8) It doesn’t matter what they wear anymore. I gave up on the battle for things that match years ago – but I still enforce some standards when it comes to what the girls wear to school. So does the school – no spaghetti straps, no short shorts. In the summer, though, all bets are off. Stains? Sure! You’ll stain it more at daycare anyway. Holes? Ventilation! And when there’s a heat advisory in effect, spaghetti straps and short shorts are practically survival gear! Also, while you can’t go to school wearing electric blue eyeshadow and fuschia lipstick that’s overshot your lips by a good quarter-inch, daycare don’t care.

9) It’s a break from the guilt. To hear Fiona and Bridget speak, you’d think that every parent of every kid is always at their school. The turkey lunch at Thanksgiving, the haunted house and costume party at Halloween, decorating gingerbread houses, the muffin breakfast, the field trips to the Museum of Nature, the Children’s Museum and Winterlude, Science-in-our-Schools, the school picnic and games day, the talent show, and the many assemblies and masses? Yep, everyone’s mother or father (and, in some cases, their grandparents) are there. This is, of course, baloney. Most parents have to work in some capacity or other. The ones who don’t have to work are not always free. I come to some things, skip others, and I’ve noticed that not everyone is there all the time. This doesn’t stop me from feeling very, very, very bad about the times I can’t make it. Daycare makes no such demands. By its very nature, it assumes that you won’t be there, because if you were you wouldn’t be paying them a bloody fortune to take care of your kids.

Welcome, summer! We’ve been waiting for you ….