Rubbing me the wrong way
This is going to start out like one of those “Penthouse” letters… “I never thought this would happen to me, but…”
In case, I’m referring to the act of writing this particular post.
But I gotta say it - Maplewood’s “Run for the Playground” messaging is seriously rubbing me the wrong way. Run for the Playground is the latest is a long string of fundraising activities to raise money for the new playground, a cause we fully support, and one we contributed to this past Saturday at the Native Plant Sale. It’s not the event that annoys me - it’s the language that’s coming home on the handouts with Jr. V. Particularly the line (in bold type, and a box, in case you miss it - capitalization is theirs) “Each family is asked to set a minimum FUNDRAISING GOAL of $100.”
Oh, and the top fundraiser in each class will get a prize! I remember stuff like that when I was in school. I was NOT the top fundraiser, to say the least, and my Mom was working like 3 jobs thanks, and needless to say I never much cared for the awards portion of these fundraising activities. But that was in high school. In case you missed it, Jr. V is six. As are many of his classmates, who all are getting this information again, since we all got informed about the minimum goal in another handout that came home about a week ago.
I’ll be honest - we decided that we’d give $50, and no thanks we would NOT be sending Jr. V out to raise funds from all our Maplewood district neighbors. So Jr. V has been giving me a hard time about not giving the full $100. Uh-huh - don’t get me started kid. I’m not some anti-commerce hippie by any means, but I guess I was innocently hoping that I’d have another year at least before Jr. V was being encouraged to develop his sales skills.
I’ve heard lots of variations on this complaint at various times in my life, and like I said, I never thought that I would be the one getting all annoyed about this sort of thing, but still - you should soften up this messaging a little Maplewood. $100 is a couple hours pay for me now, but I clearly remember being the kid whose family didn’t have the money for things like this, and I guess I’ve got some residual “issues” around that, eh? What about Jr. V’s friends who are in single parent households, or who just paid a massive tax bill - I don’t want my kid embarrassing any of them by aksing where their $100 is.
I get it OK, you don’t have enough money to stay open with all the bells and whistles. You know what, I don’t have enough money to keep putting Jr. V in daycare everytime school is closed for inservice days or whatever. It’s a balancing act that we’re ALL doing, particularly those who are not as well-off as my family, so step off a bit.
Woof - I need a beer - oh it’s Monday night…. Let’s go to Journeys!
April 19th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Dear Mr. V,
I’ve been waiting to see responses since you posted this on the 16th. I was hoping to see that you had struck a chord with other readers. I have to say I am very tired of this cultural expectation that our kids have to sell stuff to get an education. I don’t have kids of my own, but I almost always give money when neighbor kids come around to collect for this and that at their schools. I have given to Maplewood, Capitol Hill, Rieke. (Nobody from Wilson has contacted me yet.) It seems so wrong to me that they have to do that. I know the parents don’t like schlepping their kids’ causes around either. I draw the line at trips: raising money to go to Disneyland doesn’t seem like something I want to contribute to, even if it is the choir.
–Oneys girl