As this school year begins to wind down, I find myself baffled at the way that my children’s sartorial demands are ratcheting up. If you are unfamiliar, I am speaking of the School Newsletter. In it, we learn that the last week (or God, forbid, month) is full of themed dressing. Dress like a tourist day, Barbie/Ken day, monochromatic day, and my most favorite, Allergy Awareness Day. And yes, these are all real examples.
I am humbly approaching the educational system to ask, in the immortal words of Kelly Kapoor:
“Yeah, I have a lot of questions. Number one, how dare you?”
Imagine the level of privilege it takes to pull something like this off. You need an entire budget line for end of year costumes. You need a parent who has the time to think through each day. And you especially need to have a parent who is on enough Lexapro to handle the moment when the “Thursday is dress like you’re favorite Danish designer” email hits your inbox. Incidentally, this may be a sign to increase your dosage.
Even if you possess the wildly misplaced energy to handle this task, you will likely still have a stressed-out little kid on your hands. The blue socks do not match the blue shorts on “monochromatic day.” Your one pink dress does not fit for the Barbie theme. You are allergic to mosquitos (and obviously need to rep your people), but Amazon has to ship the allergy-awareness costume from Mars, so it should arrive sometime in late July. You really should have been more on top of this.
And so there you are, decent parent, trying and failing. Because at your feet is a very upset child that is worried about getting the final assignment wrong. They have already started comparing themselves to peers in their heads. Maybe they feel embarrassed, but obligated to play along. But there is nothing playful about this.
People are uniquely exhausted in May. There are the multiple performances, recitals, award ceremonies, and standardized tests. Not to mention the absolute relentlessness of waking up at East Jesus in the Morning hungover from boxed chardonnay while stuffing an expired lunchable into a smelly bookbag. Sure, let’s now include a fashion show. That will be fun for everyone.
Perhaps that is the well-meaning reason behind this hell week. Whoever comes up with these daily “assignments” wants the kids to have FUN. But I’m not buying what they are selling. Kids see right through forced fun. Because it isn’t fun at all. It’s another measurement of keeping it together at a point in the year when everything is falling apart.
We will also tell ourselves that this is to make memories “more special” for children. Jesus, be a bounced email. You know what makes things more special for kids? More recess, slip n slides, and clothes they can get dirty. They like explaining video games in grave detail to their parents and juice boxes with all the sugar. Not dressing up as Amelia Earhart when its Global Warming degrees outside.
We are in our final week of class. I took my kids to school this morning in my pajamas (which, let the record show I always do), barefoot, and with a wrinkle patch attached to my forehead. It was wonderful. Because my daughter told me all about her dreams the night before and my son talked to me about which tent he needs for scouts.
Kids just want to be known and loved, but most especially during their last week of school.
And parents just want rest from yet one more demand the weary world places.
It is a mystery who insists on these dressing days for our children. If I knew, I would be out in these streets keying cars. I do not think its teachers. Because if we think we are tired, they are hallucinating at this point in the year. Maybe it’s the administration needing to create fun at the end of the year? No one asked for that. Perhaps it’s a brigade of mothers who thrive off of besting other mothers? Get a therapist and a sense of suffering and redemption.
Either way, just stop.
Stop coercing fun out of tiny humans. It’s working, they aren’t having any. Stop thinking you can create core memories. Kids generally remember the time you said the F word and what was on television. And for the love of our God who adores you and your children without exception, stop trying to control every aspect of you kid’s life.
I will leave you with the only coping mechanism I have. As soon as my newsletter of “fun” arrived, I immediately wrote my own list. Just to make myself laugh. Because laughter is the sound of grace.
Monday is bring a unicorn
Tuesday is bring a perfectly cooked Thanksgiving turkey
Wednesday is conjure your grandmother’s dead body
Thursday is a half day so we are hoping you can manage a rhinoplasty. Its New Nose Day!
You just tempted a former Baptiterian to speak in tongues. How dare you?!
Yes. And do we wonder if this is all just a distraction instead of modeling for our kids how to end WELL…how to say goodbye…how to sit in the tension of grief and boredom and excitement? Id be happy if they spent the whole last week doing nothing but playing and eating and if I could too.
The only thing better than ‘dress your four year old as a flight attendant day’ is when your mother in law texts you to tell you all the ways you could have made a better flight attendant costume and the school emails to complain about an increase in late arrival times. Lord have mercy.
All God’s weary people said amen
Sarah, this is a most hysterically correct response to this kind of madness I’ve heard/read. I have heard much about this insanity as it seems to be “”everywhere”. I do believe the old addage that sometimes less is more. Good luck to all of the frazzled parents and anxious children in maneuvering this end of the year insanity.
I literally just had this discussion with my therapist this morning. Why on earth did anyone think this was FUN or necessary??? Oh, and today was being your electronic to school day. Yep. Electronic!!
Get Sarah an audition on SNL
Sarah, right on!!! I watch my daughter-in-law jump through these hoops with THREE children all the while she carpools to & from school for her kids & the neighborhood kids as she grabs dinner for the family so they can return to school by 6 for awards ceremonies on three different evenings for each grade! It’s a good thing she is a fashion design major and a God loving women!
Loved this! I always lost my mind at the end of the school year. The pressure to procure teacher gifts because my son was so “challenging” did me in. Not to mention all the state testing that the schools hyped up and the students hated. Those Standards of Learnings made me leave the teaching profession.
As a middle school teacher, I wholeheartedly agree with this! We complicate things a little too much.
Recently, we took a bunch of 7th graders to a garden/park near us. A lot of the school staff was confused why weren’t taking them somewhere more educational (museum, etc). But the kids LOVED it. They spent five hours outside walking around, running outside, rolling down hills. At one point, they took a waterball and played a “football” game with it.
Kids just want to be kids. They don’t need all the extra expectations and neither do the parents.
Sarah for President! I adore you!!
You nailed it and shared much needed humour to help us survive!
Wait this isn’t McSweeney’s? I never thought about it from the privilege angle before but you are obviously correct. Clothes aren’t cheap! And time is even costlier.
[…] that sees family life as a means to worldly success and not as an end in and of itself. (See also Sarah Condon’s reflection on May-Cember and the obligations that come with the end of the school year. I bet whosever idea it […]
Through my nieces and nephews, I’ve been observing the slow change over time with this “dress like a…” week in schools. And when it started, it was so casual. It was something the kids came up with on their own, maybe Mom helped by loaning a tie or an old dress of theirs, but it was far less competitive and performative. It’s like prom. When we were young and went to prom, it wasn’t the performance that it is is now. You didn’t have choreographed invitations to accompany you to the prom. People always have to one-up from year to year.
Sarah, you are a national treasure.
God freaking bless you Sarah 💥
[…] From Your Child’s School: the End of the Year Newsletter by Sarah Condon. Kids just want to be known and loved, but most especially during their last week of school. […]