School - Bye kids see you later

I was picking up my son from pre-k school today and I just happened to over hear this conversation - “I’m sorry - the darn waiting area is so small - how can I not over hear the conversation”...

But this mom was talking to another mom [ luckily I’m not the only Dad there…] about how she almost breaks down every morning when she brings her little girl to school. I could sympathize with her, I’m a man and I almost broke down when my son gave me those - your abandoning sorrowful tear filled eyes look.

Ofcourse the second Mom who of her own admission has way to many kids - said… “oh, I was so happy when school started, I finally got some free time again”. Not what the first mom was expecting to hear - in fact every one in the waiting room was a bit shocked [ but we pretended not to hear ]. Then the second mom went on to say - that after having the first one, the second, the third and the fourth - parting with them was pretty easy. Now she wakes up eager to take her kids to school. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I have my days where my two kids drive me to the point where I wonder - “why did I have kids, really?”

The thing is that it reminded me of how easily conditioned we are. You know - you think your in control and then you realize that your actions are not dictated by you or your desires. I’m sure every parent at one time thought - “hey my child is going to school so he can learn, be a doctor or something” then with out knowing it - we some how were trained to believe that our children going to school is way of us having free time. I know some parents that wish school was an all year event, heck make that an all day and year event.

Funny, we send our kids to be schooled [ politically correct way of saying - trained ]. They teach your kids how to read, how to interact, how to walk in a straight line. They condition them to fit into our society - I expect that. But when did the school system start conditioning parents - when did the school say they were the parents and we are just the daycare????