I spent my morning today remembering why I sit on that fence the way I do. I feel like I have just signed my life away. Again. For the 3rd time. For the same school year. My kids got into a great school in Provo and I signed my life away before I knew we wouldn't be staying in Provo. Then we moved and I signed my life away to a charter school and a high school. Then we moved again and I just spent my morning and afternoon signing a stack of papers that would make an escrow department proud. My hand is killing me. So is my head. And honestly, I think all that signing amounted to making sure my kids could:
a)Go to School
b)Get to School
and
c)Take a Tylenol If Needed.
For the last few years I have been happy to sit upon that fence. Happy I could see both sides of the schooling issue. I have lived them. I understand them. I have loved both experiences in it's own way. I have taken up comfortable residence on that fence. I even bought vinyl so it would look nice for years to come with very little maintenance. Today though....today I am tired. I am tired of the rules and the paperwork and legalities. I am tired of hoops. I understand rules and paperwork and legalities and hoops. You don't have to lecture me on the importance and functionality and even the divine principle involved in such things. We don't need to compare such things with eternal lessons today. Today I am just worn out. Totally and completely worn out.
I am going to pitch a tent atop my fence and lay down. I am going to just exist for the rest of this afternoon. My heart is tired. The world is just a little to complicated today. Would anyone care to join me on my big white vinyl tent covered fence? I've got treats.....
7 comments:
I'm there, right on top of the fence with you. And I hate all those forms too. Seems like I throw away at least a whole tree a day that comes home with Max from school. It drives me nuts.
If you've got chocolate I'm there. JK. It killed me this morning to fill out a form so my kid can run at school on Friday...what has the world come to?
Sorry me dear, but I am too far entrenched in the side of the fence that I have chosen. But I will stay close to the fence for you so that we can chat and you can throw me some chocolate! :) Love ya.
It's sad that there is such a need for all the paperwork. Unfortunately we have to have the paperwork so the children can participate without the school worrying about being sued.
Hope you have a good rest in your tent.
Strangely, I never did take a place on the fence. I knew where I was before Gin was close to school age. I had great friends who were educating their own children. I knew I wanted it. So I just started doing it. From the first moment, I was doing it. Later, I would discover all the reasons why I was doing it. But to begin with, it just felt right. I never hated or had contempt for the schools; they are what has offered equality and opportunity to all children in this country. They are important. But they should be an option, not an obligation, for those who would actively do differently.
That aside. I also had no problem whatsoever using the schools whenever I saw an advantage in doing it. I paid my property tax, so I always saw the schools as a resource. They owed me. And I had the right to use them. I never cared if my kids jumped through the hoops. I established a relationship with principals and administrators, explained my position cogently, and also pro-rated the fees they wanted to charge me. I knew my kids would never graduate, and I didn't care; universities don't care either, if the grades the kids do get in the classes they choose to take show that the kids can play the game, and if the college boards show intelligence and cogent thinking.
So I made my own rules. Like I always seem to do. I HATED the forms and the fees, I gnashed my teeth on them. I found out, for instance, that the AP teachers had to buy all their text books out of the AP fees - and yet the school was trying to make me pay the AP fees and pay for the textbook use on top of that. It's government chaos, institutional chaos and defies the very logic the institution prides itself in owning.
So I guess I'm saying I chose whatever side of the fence worked for my kids at the moment. The schools didn't own my kids. I once explained to them: the day you carry my kids in your body for nine months, I will agree to ask YOUR permission to do anything with my children. YOU, on the other hand, dear schools, may ask MY permission instead. And they said: "Okay."
Enjoy your fence. It allows you to make intelligent, independent choices as the moment dictates. How many things in life do you make one decision about, and can never change things after that? Especially when the welfare of your children is involved, any such absolutes should be avoided like the plague.
She steps down from her soap box, yawns, and goes upstairs to floss her teeth.
That darn fence. Mine is a catapult. I know what side of the fence I'd like to be on but life keeps throwing me over the dang fence so I'm with Kristen. I'm a homeschooler at heart but when the need arises with each and every kid....and it is always different as you know......sometimes their in......and sometimes their home.....and sometimes their both!
So ya, I'll join you on the fence cuz it has to be a whole lot better than being thrown over the fence time and time again. :)
Being on the fence is what is wearing you out! Takes a lot of balance work.
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