As a regular winner of the “Mother of the Year” award, I try to keep my kids scholastically engaged in the Summer. Big. Flipping. Mistake.
I am not a teacher, nor will I ever be.
How are teachers superior to me? Let me count the ways.
1. Even when I am right, I am wrong. I tried to help my son with a math packet he has to complete before school starts. He was having a problem, and I, being ever so helpful, tried to explain it to him. His response? “You don’t know how it’s done! And now, it will be wrong! And I’ll never get the right answer!” Yes, I meant to ruin your academic career, tiny human.
2. Embarrassment means my kid will never read. Ever. I try to help my daughter with her sight words. She likes to do them all on her own, and if you correct her, kiss your ass goodbye because she will take that shit off with her teeth. Then she is pouting while you are sitting there ass-less, pleading with the 5-year-old to sound out the word, “what.”
3. I do not know this newfangled crap. Have you guys had to deal with phonics? There are words with hoops, swoops and umlauts all over the place. I don’t get it; at least my kid does because I have no clue what any of it means. Does that word need a slash? An accent aigu? Who the fuck knows. And this leads to…
4. I cannot think fast enough to answer their endless questions. While I am an intelligent woman, when my kids ask me anything too quickly, the hamster that runs the wheel of my brain dies. “Mommy, why doesn’t Daddy have boobies like you do?” “Did Grandma go to school with Thomas Jefferson since she knows so much about him?” “Are girl lions less cool because they don’t have manes?” Yes, I have answers for this, but when I stumble over them, I look like an idiot. And it all ends with, “I thought mommies knew everything.” Well, I don’t. Learn it now and maybe it won’t hurt so much when you get older.
5. Why do they run away after 5 minutes? My daughter wants to be a Daisy Scout, so over the summer we work on little projects to get her to cookie selling glory in the fall. You’d think she would be ever so excited to complete the Daisy packets, but my tiny ray of sunshine leaps up to check on her brother, drag the dog around by her collar, get a snack, and pretty much do anything other than work on her project. You know what she has to do? Color flowers, draw pictures of her summer, and talk about how to be a better scout. She has some serious first-world problems and they are driving me insane.
6. Painting is messy. I usually don’t mind art projects; in fact I encourage them. But when my kids, especially The Girl, want to paint, I lose my mind. I lay out the newspaper, but then somehow, gnomes end up putting the paint all over my wood table. While I am cleaning up the splotchy mess, the kids are either watching endless amounts of TV (parenting FAIL) or they are painting the dogs. Seriously, the schnauzer had blue ears until I could figure out how to wash dog ears.
I don’t know what the moral of this story is, but I know that I will never be able to compete with the teachers of America. They are more patient than I could ever be, and I cannot wait for September to arrive so I can unload my spawn in their classroom.
7 Comments
Great post Carrie! Sitting there with “no ass” lol. I can tell you though, as the daughter of 2 teachers and being a qualified teacher myself, often times teachers can’t teach their own kids! Friction occurs on many an occasion. Unless, of course, I am actually the problem here. Hmmmm.
Thanks! And I’m sure you’re not the problem; it’s the kids. It’s always the kids 🙂
Pingback: Teachers Are More Competent Than Me | Ponies and Martinis
You are a better woman than I. I cannot tolerate any art projects other than those “Magic” sheets where you paint water on the page and the colors magically appear. And don’t even get me started on play doh.
I hate playdoh too! For some reason it was always left out and dried up or it magically disappeared. No idea how that happened.
Ugh. Thanks for reminding me it doesn’t get better. Haha. I hate play-doh as well. I remember liking it as a kid and only played with it at other kid’s houses, wondering why my mom never bought any. Now I understand.
Haha as a high school teacher I very much appreciate this post. I think the same thing about daycare. …how the hell do they do what they do with such TINY little beings??! I fully credit them for teaching my kid to put on her own coat, crawl down the stairs and drink out of a regular cup, among other things.