Back to School Night

Tonight was Back to School Night at our elementary school. But only for K - 2, because the school is so large they can't fit the entire elementary school roster of parents in on one night. The enrollment at this particular elementary school is about 1000, which amazes me, because the school is 23 years old and only has three trailers. Trailers in Chesterfield schools are quite common, so I have to assume that whomever predicted growth and attendance for this specific school and school zone did a phenomenal job. And the three trailers? Two for storage, one for a resource. I love the fact that my children are not trailer educated, because that just seems to detract from the education, at least in my mind.

The sheer scope of the school system is mind-boggling to me, because where I grew up, I think the entire school system, kindergarten through twelfth grade, maybe had about 1000 students. Where my daughters go to school, it's like this big educational machine that is very finely tuned and well oiled, and thus far, I've been very pleased with the education my children have been receiving. And after paying 18,000 dollars in one year for daycare (which was the all time high), private school wasn't a complete rule-out for me when we started the school process. Paying that amount of money in cash for daycare for one year also taught me that college for my children might be affordable if I can pay on a weekly installment plan. However, the size and scope of our current elementary school just reinforces to me my need to be extra-involved with what my children are doing. This serves several purposes: to fix what my parents didn't bother to do for me when I was in school, and to make sure my children don't get lost in this mass shuffle, and to make sure what they get more out of school than I ever did. 

Back to School Night would have been more pleasant for me if... wait for it.... wait for it... I hadn't called The Ex to remind him about this and ask if he was coming. I figured he'd want to come, after he threw such a fucking fit to get one of the yearly calendars the school puts out with all of the school activities (which I gave him at the orientation before school started). So I show up, he's there and says he didn't know this was a child-free event. I said, well, yeah, this is for the PTA and the parents. Duh. But then I remembered he hadn't gone to any of the other Back to School Nights, so he probably didn't know. We go to the first class, kindergarten, and have to sit through this whole long lecture from the teacher. This is useful if you've never had a child in kindergarten before. Starter kindergarten parents can benefit from this. All I wanted to know is who is the room mom so I can kiss her ass in an effort to get more time in the classroom and does the teacher allow parents to work in the classroom? I also needed to sign up for a parent-teacher conference, which I did, but then The Ex bitched about that's when he has to go to school and I got pissed and changed the time to accommodate him. Because apparently I'm a dumbass and this man is still manipulating me. I told him, this is the last time I'm taking time off because you can't make it. And then I thought to myself, this is also the last time I'm going to marry an uneducated motherfucker. The next man I marry, he's going to come to the table with something other than a high school diploma and a lot of debt from his first wife. Yes, I am his second epic failure. Consider my standards raised, effective tonight. Actually it was effective years ago, but I'm considering that a major implementation of this policy occurred tonight.

Kindergarten meet and greet ends, and we roll down to the second grade class. Same routine here, except in this class, we sign up for parent-teacher conferences and then the teacher invites us to write a note in our child's journal for the child to read tomorrow. I write my note, and I know The Ex is standing behind me, so I hold the notebook over my shoulder (because I'm sitting at the desk). I hold the notebook up. Nothing happens. I look behind me to hand the notebook off to The Ex, because I know the older daughter will want a note from her dad, too. But... he had left. Just left. I guess he had enough of Back to School Night. Time to rush home to do whatever he does. At that point, I knew that this was the absolute last time (and first time actually, since we've been living in separate residences) that I'll call and ask him if he's coming to a school function. He's got a calendar, he can figure it out. I'm done. I am so annoyed and pissed by the whole thing, especially that he couldn't even be bothered to hang around for an extra five minutes to write a note in his daughter's journal. Are you kidding me?

The real problem here is that I basically married my father. I figured this out a few months before I told The Ex that I wanted a divorce. I know that my father never paid a bit of attention to me, because he couldn't. It would have required him to pay attention to someone other than himself. So I think subconsciously, or unconsciously, I sought out a man who was just like my father, and then I married him. I wanted some attention and my father was never going to pay attention to me, so I married someone just like him to make up for that. Except it didn't work. I've listened to other people talk, and they've said, well, if you didn't get married, then you wouldn't have your children. But I feel like I would have had these exact children, no matter who I married. I know that's completely illogical, but I really feel like these children, our children, are more of me than they are of him. I can't explain this obviously distorted thinking, but I honestly believe that. I just feel like there is more of me in them than there is of him. Maybe because they're girls, maybe because I feel like I've done a majority of the nurturing, and discipline, and other stuff, but I just can't explain how this cognitive distortion feels so right. But all cognitive distortions feel right, which is what makes them so hard to break.

My greatest fear out of all of this is that I'll just keep repeating this pattern, or that I'll keep marrying the same men that my mother married. Well, not the actual SAME men, but you get the idea. I'll just keep getting involved with dickheads who don't care about anyone other than themselves, who don't appreciate any of what I do, don't appreciate who I am and where I've come from, men who don't want to help me try to be a better person (because it will make them feel worse about themselves), men who use and manipulate me, and I'll never be able to break this pattern. That's a scary proposition for me, to think that this might happen again, that I might end up with someone who does all of these things, and then I'm right back to square one. I don't want to go through this again. This is one of the fears I have about dating. I mean, if I don't date, if I don't get involved with anyone, then this can't happen. And that's my safety zone. But at the same time, I can't just hide forever. This is my rock, and this is my hard place. A crossroads, if you will.

Anyway, the night ended up with me finding out that none of my children's teachers are interested in me volunteering, but that's okay. The excuse I was given is that it's a violation of the children's privacy to have parents in the classroom, and also that they have to make sure no one in the classroom is a registered sex offender. I'll address both of these: just how goddamn far are we going to take HIPAA? I mean, come on. I never bother to explain to people who hide behind HIPAA that I know HIPAA pretty freaking well and that doesn't work with me. School and health care... not really related, especially since my children are not in need of specialized education due to some kind of medical problem. But nice try, and I bet that works on people who don't know any better. The sex offender bit is amusing to me because of my career, but that's all I'll say about that, other than this (and this might be the smartest shit you hear in a while): the sex offenders you need to worry about are the sex offenders WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN CAUGHT. Because they are already in the schools, working, volunteering, visiting. Trust me on this. But people never want to hear that. So whatever. I marched my ass right down the hall to my older daughter's first grade teacher from last year, and she'd love to have me come and volunteer! This woman, well, she knows that sometimes, you ask for permission and sometimes, you ask for forgiveness. In between the two, you just do what the hell you want. And just for good measure, I signed up to volunteer for special education. They never have enough parents and they fucking love moms like me. So there's the irony of the night - I signed up to volunteer for special education classes, the very classes where the HIPAA thing would probably work. Ha! Gotcha.