Last Word: "Professional" Moms Drive This Mom Of Five Crazy

How Not To Be The PTA Poster Child

by Nancy Zintak

April 1, 2008

A few years ago, I was dragging my walker (metaphorically) into the media center at my child’s elementary school and was struck by the fact that I was completely burned out on kindergarten. Much like the euphoria when I finally “graduated” from preschool after 14 long years of auctions, puppetry arts field trips and Thanksgiving performances of Five Fat Turkeys Are We, I was “done” with kindergarten. I’m not proud that I was burned out on kindergarten….  It’s just that I’ve been through it so very many times.

My bad attitude was carefully honed over years of observing a phenomenon I call “Moms Who Really Should Go Back to Work.” These are generally women who were at the top of their careers and now have fully embraced their stay-at-homeness and have taken it to new levels of involvement in their children’s lives. Even as I single these moms out, I lump myself among them. I’m a card-carrying PTA mom who has logged more than 30,000 hours working Halloween carnivals, booster club fundraisers, classroom auctions and art and curriculum committees.

But I always maintained a healthy and sarcastic attitude of complete honesty: Given the choice, I would pretty much always rather be doing something else. I know it’s rewarding to help your school and your community, but with full disclosure, I’d rather finish reading the newspaper. I came to this bad attitude early in my parenting career. Working full time in the radio business, I was a gung-ho PTA mom trying to “do it all,” and I threw myself into a bustle of meetings and volunteering.
 
My fresh and effusive outlook quickly faded as I observed some mothers who seemingly spent all day thinking up things to form committees around. Things like lunch in the elementary school cafeteria – who knew anyone cared?

I always look on school lunches as a bonus: one more thing I don’t have to think about. I couldn’t imagine attending a meeting designed to improve the cafeteria experience. I had always viewed it as important for children to be surrounded by inedible food that smelled bad – it makes them appreciate the ramen noodles you’re serving up nightly.

While I continued to work hard for all my schools, I harbored dark thoughts of superiority over these nice people who wanted nothing more than to help out at their schools and seemingly enjoyed the work.

My dark thoughts were completely justified the day I attended a year-end “wrap-up” of kindergarten. The principal invited parents to come and do a postmortem of the how the year had gone.

I went merely out of courtesy, because at this point, I had become a sort of oddity – now on my fifth and final child to go through kindergarten, I was viewed as a grizzled prophet by all these fresh, young parents with happy and good attitudes. I had ceased to be introduced by name or my profession – now I was simply, “Shehasfivedaughters.”

So I go for my final parent coffee on the subject of kindergarten and was stunned by the first comment. “I was really hoping I could have spent more time in the classroom with my child,” a pouty mom expressed. I couldn’t believe my ears … did I really hear her correctly? You send your child to kindergarten so you can have seven hours of uninterrupted time that does not involve crafts, puzzles, small-motor skills or Goldfish. I was incredulous – couldn’t she think of anything to do? Work on a cure for cancer? Drive your ALTA team crazy? Run a load of laundry?

But I’ve learned over the years that no good comes from being honest in these situations, so I smiled sweetly at the eager mom, and with all the spunk this grizzled mom could muster, I said, “ Me too, darn it! I miss my baby so much during our time apart!”