Back to school roller derby

Who will be the next School Supply Roller Derby Queen?

Lace up your skates, moms. It’s time to hit the aisles and go for the gold. If you’re fast and tough, you might actually secure that Justice League lunch box and water bottle your kid’s been pining for all year. Show no mercy. It’s back to school time.

God help me I hate school supply shopping. I hate everything associated with school supply shopping. I hate hordes of people fighting over number 2 pencils, I hate trying to find wide-ruled notebook paper amidst piles and piles of college lined loose leaf. I hate having to buy 4 large glue sticks when they always come 3 to a pack. I hate that despite the fact that every school in the world insists on kids bringing ziploc baggies and disinfectant wipes, they never put that stuff with the school supplies and you have to traipse through the entire store with a million other people to get to the cleaning supply and home storage areas before they run out of the items you need to complete your list.

Argh!!!! It’s awful. It was better this year because I took each boy separately. Trying to navigate two supply lists while maneuvering a shopping cart and corralling two young tykes was nearly impossible last year. At least I wised up a bit.

But the whole process is so utterly angst producing. I’m not even sure why. I love shopping, for almost everything. But this is…just…not fun. I spent over $300 for both boys. That sounds like a lot to me. I mean, that doesn’t even include text books or any real type of learning material.

I saw this one woman, who looked equally distraught, and she said that at her school you can pay extra money and they’ll do your school supply shopping for you. Unfortunately, she had flaked and missed the deadline this year. “Rest assured,” she bemoaned, “that wont happen again.” For a moment I wished our school did that.

But then, in some weird masochistic side of my brain, I heard a voice saying, “but you’d miss such a meaningful mom-son experience if you didn’t go school supply shopping each year.” The fact is, given the choice to abdicate all school related shopping excursions, I probably wouldn’t take it. Because even if I tell myself that instead of the crowded Target aisles, we could go to the water park or the movies or somewhere equally fun and carefree, something else would come up and we’d miss that time together and then it would feel just like every other missed moment I feel guilty and forlorn over.

So, I’ll keep body-checking 12 year-olds to get the last package of yellow highlighters and pushing distracted moms’ carts out of the way to retrieve that one Yoda pencil box that my son simply cannot live without. I will do this year after year after year. Because I’m a mom. And that’s just what we do.

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Eliyore

“Want to go to your friend Jake’s birthday party next month?” I casually asked Eli, my just-turned-7-year-old son, as I perused a stack of overdue bills and snailmail invitations. “It’s a magic party.”

Making your kid attend a festive event looking like Eeyore on Benzies just doesn't quite feel right.

“I don’t really like magic,” he countered.

“But Jake is a really good friend. He came to your party, and I know he’s not that into sports.” I calmly reasoned.

“Whatever,” he seemed to concede. “Can I go outside and play football, mom?” and just like that, he was off, bounding around the backyard, tossing himself buttonhooks, streaks and his very own version of a “hail Mary.”

I quickly emailed our RSVP to my friend, tacked the invite onto the bulletin board and entered the event in my iCal. As a recovering scatterbrain, I need to follow this type of rigid protocol to keep my life and my family in some semblance of order.

Fast forward to the day of the party.

Eli is ready. Gift is wrapped. I have my GPS set to the birthday location. All signs seem to be a go. “I don’t want to go,” says Eli.

“Well, the party starts in half an hour. You already said you would go. You cannot back out on a commitment,” I answered unwaveringly.

“But I don’t like magic,” he added.

“Well, you should have thought of that when you agreed to go in the first place. Come on, let’s get in the car.” I felt I had adequately squelched potential rebellion and Eli and I drove across town to the party.

When we pulled into the parking lot, Eli, becoming more insistent, said, “I really don’t want to go, mom. Please. Can we just go home?”

I’d already eyed and acknowledged the birthday boy’s father at the front door, greeting guests. “Eli,” I firmly stated, “We said we would go to this party. Please get out of the car and let’s go in.”

His dejected, slumped stance as he exited the vehicle was heartbreaking. Was I doing the right thing? Jake was a friend, and sometimes you have to do things for your friends. Wasn’t that a valuable lesson? But making him attend a festive event looking like Eeyore on Benzodiazepines? It just didn’t feel right.

As usual, I told that still, small voice shouting inside my head to just be quiet and I escorted Eli into the party. There were tons of perky, playful youngsters all giggling gleefully as we entered. Jake saw Eli and came rushing up with a big hug and a hello. By this time, Eli was sobbing into my side while desperately clutching onto my leg.

“Please mom, I don’t feel right being here. I want to go home.”

Jake’s mom approached and offered a plate of Eli’s favorites, (fresh strawberries and grapes), and suggested we sit out in the hallway for a few minutes to help Eli regain composure. We followed her advice. When the last berry was gone, Eli asked for more fruit. “We can only have more fruit if we go back into the party,” I quietly asserted. Eli loves fruit more than anything in the universe. I thought maybe this would get us over the hurdle.

He slowly stood up, dumped his plastic birthday plate in the trash, and said, “Can we please go home now?”

There’s always a point in childrearing where the parent comes to the sad realization that whatever battle she is waging is simply not worth the energy she’s expending. This was my moment.

I held out my hand. Eli grasped it tightly. We left the building and headed for the car. “I’m sorry, mom,” he said with heartfelt sadness. “But I don’t like magic and I didn’t want to go.”

Suddenly the memory of my asking him about attending the party grew hazy. Had I asked him? Had he told me he didn’t want to go? Had I simply ignored him and followed my own wishes without his consent? It all seemed blurry and vague to me.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked as we pulled out and headed towards home.

“No,sweetie,” I answered. “I think I’m just…mad at me.”

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…Hear me roar

If anyone tells you it’s men who keep women down, don’t believe them.

I have now been told by three FEMALE academics at my kids’ school that any/all of the behavior problems manifested by either/both of my sons can likely be attributed to my working outside the home.

Um…hello? What year is this? I’m responsible for every ill that befalls my children because I have a career? Whatever happened to “I am woman, hear me roar?”

“Maybe if you spent more time with them…,” “I don’t want to judge, but his accidents started right around the time you went into rehearsals for your new play…,” “Well, maybe the problem has something to do with your work schedule…”

Look, I genuinely love the teachers and specialists at my boys’ school. They are talented professionals who treat my kids with love, compassion and respect. But these kinds of comments are hurtful, and way more damaging than any construction workers’ cat calls or chauvinistic boss’ demands that a female VP fetch him a cup of java in the middle of an executive meeting.

I shouldn’t have to defend my choice to work outside the home to anyone. Btw, I did notice that not one teacher has ever suggested that either of my kids’ (infrequent) less than stellar behavior has anything to do with my husband’s workaholic tendencies. No, of course not. Because it’s okay for the man to work, to have a career, to be devoted to his profession.

If all these smart, thoughtful women immediately leap to the conclusion that every issue that surfaces in the classroom is the fault of a working mother, what hope do we have of ever achieving real equality? I work hard. But I work even harder taking care of my kids, loving them, being with them, listening to them. But I don’t get credit for all of their successes and positive characteristics. I want credit for their kindness, their compassion, their off-the-charts intelligence, their creativity, humor, good grades, verbal acuity, etc…

I could go on and on. But I wont. I’ll suffice to say that it is 2010 in America and all of that mumbo jumbo we grew up with about us women having it all and not having to choose between family and career, I actually believed that. I’ve built my life around the premise that you can in fact have professional fulfillment and still be a caring, devoted mother.

Maybe you can’t have it all. But you can sure have a lot. Isn’t it time to dispense with the 1950’s June Cleaver mentality and support each other whether we choose to work outside the home or mother full time?