Being that this is my first child into the school system I may be seing everything wrong, but it feels like there's a lot of expectations and I'm not sure I can meet them all. Let's be brutally honest, there are fewer and fewer stay home moms, and more of those moms have side businesses, so we are busy too. Perhaps we are just as busy as the teacher, who clearly can't do everything and no way can they keep up all the extras, but maybe we can't do all that's needed as well. Then there's the moms who make it all harder for the rest of us. I don't have the time or energy to make an individual specialized gift for Valentines Day, I can't spend the time and money doing gift bags for Halloween, and it's a struggle to find time to stay at school and glue papers into a scrapbook. When I was in school we glued our own work into our books and took them home to our parents. There were surprises for them that they didnt' help make, there were construction paper valentines and Halloween was about getting out of class and going trick or treating, not handing out goodie bags at school.
I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, and I actually try to stay involved in school, but I'm very not good at it, I have trouble scheduling the time as when she's at school is when I do all the things that she doesn't want to do so my time with her is just for us. I do all my own appointments while she's at school, I run errands and buy groceries, I pay bills and go to the bank. This means when I pick her up from school it is time for us to be together completly and have nothing else to worry about, I don't have to drag her around while she's bored and unhappy. There just needs to be a balance. Life balance, work balance, and time for ourselves. I think perhaps the solution is 1) don't send so much home or keep everything for scrapbooks that will clutter the home and mean more to me in theory then actually get looked at, and 2) have the kids do some of it themselves, they need to learn how to glue and print anyway, why not do it at school?
How much do you volunteer at your child's school? Do you have a business, job, or other kids to look after? Who can help me plan this time in better?