Some People Are Different Than Us

Sorry I haven't posted lately. Things have been busy getting ready for Boylee's kinder graduation. As the Official Room Parent I have been in charge of coordinating teacher gifts. For the first gift, I very delicately asked families to donate any monetary amount they felt comfortable with, so we could pool the money for a gift card.

Most families gave $20. Great!

The single mom gave $10. Fabulous! I know she works hard.

One mom gave $20 on behalf of another mom who is in the midst of a divorce and doesn't have a job. What friendship!

One mom gave me $250. Wow! She says she's so grateful to our wonderful teacher, and I concur.

One family, who just purchased a vacation home, gave $7. Hmmm.

The second part of the project is a scrapbook. To make it easy on everyone, I went out and bought scrapbook pages, and gave each family as many as they wanted. They turn the completed pages back in to me, I take it to kinkos and have it all bound together, and voila -- beautiful, handmade gift that costs parents nothing more than their child's time and a little bit of creativity. I made it very clear that any artistic effort is accepted -- coloring, writing, scribbling, photos, stickers, whatever. And the pages are extraordinarily, sweetly cute. Some were clearly done only by the child. Some were done mostly by the parents. Doesn't matter -- they're all nice.

And then there are the three families that gave no money and have not participated in the scrapbook. And it's not just that they haven't participated in this -- these three families have participated in nothing for the entire school year. These are parents I've never seen at school, never seen at an event, who have never volunteered for anything, never responded to an email or note I've sent home. Nothing. I know some people are very busy, especially in these times. But to never show up for your child's Thanksgiving feast, holiday concert, Open House -- nothing? In kindergarten? That's just sad.