This was supposed to be a post about teachers and parents……..like the over-achieving ones I’ve known who have marched into the principal’s office in August with the letter that had the name of their kid’s new teacher and demanded it be changed because “I’ve heard some things.”
Or the mothers who made Maggie’s 5th grade teacher’s life a living hell. Years later she told me that if she didn’t have a mother (who was a high school teacher) to prop her up every night she would have never come back again.
I never understood this trash-talking of teachers that goes on among parents. It is so counter-productive to success in school, and wouldn’t it be nearly impossible to be fair to a student when their mother is bitching to everybody about you?
Instead I will tell you about a conversation I had with Maggie about teacher wardrobe issues………..
I was wearing a really cute outfit the other day. A pencil skirt. Hose. I was wearing hose. Do you know not one person told me I looked cute. Not one single person.
Mama said there’d be days like this.
So a couple of days later, there’s this old teacher – maybe a couple of years older than you.……..
Fossil.
She’s wearing one of those dorky holiday sweaters and you know what I said to her?
That she belonged in a museum.
That I liked her sweater.
You said that about a holiday sweater?
I didn’t like her sweater. I thought she looked like an old lady in a goofy sweater.
A relic wrapped in a knitted Christmas tree.
Is this my life? Pumpkins, turkeys, snowman, shamrocks, hearts…………all over my clothes?
It sounds disturbing.
It’s Pinterest, you know. Mallory and Caitlin are always pinning these cute outfits and I don’t know what I’m doing.
We’ll have an intervention over the break. Those two live for that kind of stuff.
Be generous this year if you’re giving a gift to the teacher. No dollar store crap. No apple mugs. No lotions or potions, notecards or hot cocoa mix. Give them a gift card for coffee, a movie, Panera or Chipotle, the mall. Give them something that’s just for them.
Give. Give. Give……………
…………….because this week we know.
