Ya know - that sorta brings up another point. When did it become a thing that parents felt a need to attend EVERY event? I mean, it is great to support your kids’ interests. But you can pick and choose your spots - attend the more meaningful events, or when they are convenient and weather cooperates…
Probably around the same time dads became required to be present for their kids’ birth.
My parents never came to my wrestling matches. “We did that stuff with your brothers” I think they said. I didn’t especially want them there, so it was fine. We didn’t go to all of our kids things, but we did enough so they knew we were interested.
Probably somewhere along about the same time that it became a movie trope that one of the parents, usually the dad, is unable to be there for some school event, thereby providing an easy way for the writers to increase the tension in the parents’ marriage.
Any of you people have kids in competitive chess? I never did, although I coached an elementary school chess team for a few years. Imagine watching 150 kids play chess, from a seat far enough away that you can’t see what they’re doing. For about 10 hours. On two consecutive days.
I wouldn’t say “coach” in the sense of “helping them be better chess players,” as I myself am a terrible chess player. My role was mostly making sure they understood tournament rules and then being their chaperone at the tournament.
I second track meets. Excruciating. And since they’re in the spring and outdoors, the weather was, more often than not, unpleasant.
Heh. Both my kids took Suzuki violin, which involves an entire year learning to scratch out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. Culminating with a recital. Didn’t bother me, I’m blissfully tone deaf.
I’m old (HS class of 1977), and my parents attended all of our events. Of course, there were 6 of us (5 boys which is important because I’m old enough that my sister didn’t have a lot of athletic opportunities). Since we split 3/2 for wrestling/basketball they attended home games/meets when there was a conflict, but otherwise there was always at least one parent there.
There were a couple of years where some of the other school moms were obnoxious Queen Bees and Wannabes worse than any of the kids.
My daughter’s high school graduation had a guest speaker who was a famous, highly admired author. Unfortunately, nobody edited his speech. It was way too long and hugely depressing - kids started booing about halfway through, and by the end of it even parents and grandparents were booing. The city newspaper reported on it the next day. Last graduation I hope to ever attend.
This X 1 million.
My kids went to private and parochial schools and for the massive amount I spent sending them there they shouldn’t of had to do fund raisers in the first place. I absolutely refused to take shit to work or let them stand in front of a store and harass customers going in to buy a goddamn candy bar or tin of crappy popcorn. If they wanted to go door to door and bother strangers in their home or hit up their relatives that was their choice.
My son was a very mediocre to average soccer player in second and third grades. My fault, I suppose. We played other sports together.
Actually, what made it worse was that they were on a team that practiced once a week, only on Sundays, and then team got invaded by a bunch of kids from the team of a nearby elementary school. They were already practicing six days a week and joined to get more practice time, 'cuz eight year olds can’t take a day off, I suppose.
That dropped my son down from being a regular to a backup that never got time. One or two kids from the original team played. We went to a few tournaments in the middle of summer in a semitropical climate and saw him play for a few minutes, total.
Fortunately, he decided to switch sports and now does really well in kendo and sailing. Kendo is fun to watch. “Watching” sailing requires sufficient battery power for your phone.
It’s not an activity, but the school requires all the homework pages be signed by a parent. I should make a stamp with my name.
I did luck out on fund raising. One of the activities we do is that some of us parents have a dragon boat team, and we donate prize money to the school.
(Photo from internet)
It’s a lot of work, but much better than selling stupid crap.
Whilst it might be excruciating to you, seeing my twins on stage at a 6th grade choir concert was one of the happiest moments of my life. I didn’t know if my youngest would ever take the breadth of life for 45 minutes, and is on the autism spectrum. After being stuck in a special needs school for elementary, middle and high school she goes to the same school as her siblings. Her elder twin is an amazingly helpful sibling to the youngest. Watching them both in the same horrendous choir recital was breathtaking and I bawled like a baby.
I don’t mind the excruciating school stuff because it pales in comparison with the alternative. YMMV
This is a video of a girl walking out from her high school graduation after she gets her diploma.
I know a woman who teaches piano lessons in her home, and she too has the recitals at our church. IIRC, she divides it up into pre-teens, teenagers, and adults (with a bit of overlap, of course) so nobody has to sit through a long, boring recital.
Started BOOING? That’s funny, almost.
Who was the author? You can PM me if you don’t want to post it here.
Absolutely not, we ALL want to know who that author is.
Heck, I wasn’t going to out one of my favorite authors, but it was pretty widely known out here.
Behold the transcript of the speech. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t get shut down when he started talking about God.
We had a Swedish exchange student at our school one year (mid 1970s), and a graduation speaker who went on a tear about socialism and the hellhole that the Scandinavian countries were. At one point it looked like she was going to either walk out or possibly slap him.
Youngest son did that for his college graduation. We were all OK with it - he got in line early and we got to skip the reading of several hundred names.