• Home
  • Books
  • Biography
  • Q&A
  • News & Events
  • Blog
  • Mailing List
  • Media
  • Speaking
  • Contact

Jacquelyn Mitchard

Author

 Facebook Twitter

JOIN JACKIE’S MAILING LIST

Follow Us on RSS

Recent Posts

  • Begin Again Again ….
  • A Difficult Birth
  • What the People Say
  • Being on Oprah … Time and Again
  • She’s Back!

Recent Comments

  • Jacquelyn Mitchard on A Difficult Birth
  • Jacquelyn Mitchard on A Difficult Birth
  • Sandra Rice on A Difficult Birth
  • Jacquelyn Mitchard on A Difficult Birth
  • Elizabeth Dougherty on A Difficult Birth

Archives

SIgn This

October 13, 2013 by Jacquelyn Mitchard 1 Comment

If I had only one child, I would still be around the bend by the amount of paperwork that comes home from school.

With six kids still in school, and the ambition of being a good mother, and a caring mother, or at least a present mother, I try to thoroughly read the things I sign.

In part this is because I care, and try to be good. In part it’s because I don’t want to learn I ended up as chair of the planning committee for a playground structure to be completed in 2018.

The first thing every single one of my kids does after walking in the door is dump the backpack .

Then, like the paper zombie apocalypse, they surround me with hands thrusting things in my face. “Sign this, Mom, and read the discussion questions.”

The discussion questions?

“Sign the pledge, Mom. You forgot that part.”

The pledge? Like AA?

“Mom, you have to sign this and give me a check for thirty-five dollars. Or twenty-five dollars. I’m not sure.”

“Mom, sign this. It means I’m staying after every other Tuesday from three to four in the afternoon. So I’ll come home on the bus but then you have to drive me back right after because I’m not in Stay and Play.”

“Mom, can you volunteer to help my English class write a novel? Twenty of us are going to write one chapter at a time.”

“Mom, sign my spelling test.”

Sign my take-home folder. My permission slip. My picture-day makeup. Sign my math practice. Sign the slip for my recorder and put five dollars in this envelope. No, I can’t use Will’s because he said he spit on it and had cold sores.

Sign this twelve-page document explaining the reason I was assigned to the orange reading group instead of the green reading group.

Sign the permission for me to audition for ‘Annie.”

Sign the permission slip for me to try to get into the orange reading group.

All this leaves out the visitations, which began the first week with Open House – for which the children draw maps, write letters and make puzzles intended to cause wretchedness for those parents who are still at work at 5 p.m. when the tour of the school begins – and continues through Back to School Night, Progress Night, The Octoberfest, The Holiday Holller, The Spring Fling and The End of Days.

Now, I know that my parents knew where my school was, and knew my teachers in a general way. This was not because they ever showed up for any Open Houses that didn’t involve liquor or barbecue. It was because I got very good grades and also got in trouble a lot. I got the good grades because I liked to read, and I got in trouble because I had (and still have) a mouth disproportionately big compared to my size and … it must be said, intelligence. I remember once my mother having to come to school because I refused to write the fifth-grade skit about the immortal love of John Smith and Pocahontas because my sources had proved conclusively that they were BFF’s (although she might have been better off with him than  John Rolfe). The 60s offered a more civilized approach to school: my parents did their job and I did, or didn’t do mine. My own school bag was like the vacuum cleaner bag of someone who owns five golden retrievers, swollen with papers I dutifully put in but never took out.

I know what today’s teachers are trying to accomplish. They want to make sure that uber-busy parents stay connected to school, and take responsibility for their children’s education. I hope this has worked for me, although when I was quizzing my eldest daughter on SAT words and learned her definition of “probity,” I had my doubts.

I don’t know about where you live, but for me, there hasn’t been this much signage in Massachusetts since the Constitution.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Maria Ellen Dybevik says

    January 20, 2015 at 11:40 pm

    Oh, I loved this post and can relate. I have three little ones at home, twins in kindergarten and a third grader. My entryway is clogged every day at exactly 3:26 p.m. when the bus returns them to me. I go through backpacks and folders, pockets and outer pockets, side zippers and inner zippers. Then, I make three piles, one for each child, on the dining room table. We never use our dining room table because it is piled sky high with projects, papers, art work, math links, announcements and newsletters. I let it occupy this space just long enough so I think the kids won’t know when I begin to purge (right before recycling day). It feels so liberating to scale down the piles. As soon as it is thrown out, one of them asks for that “special rainbow picture I made”! Oh, no! My reply is this, “I don’t know where it could be”. Which is the truth. It could be in the recycling truck, at the recycling center or already made into a new Cheerios box somewhere.
    I do have a sentimental side and keep the really special things, but most of it hits the highway.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Copyright © 2021 Jacquelyn Mitchard