Return to C&J Online News home page

Here's a single mom who doesn't fit in

by JESSICA STANTON, C&J 371

I am a mother. A full-time college student and a full-time employee. Also single.

No, I don’t want you to applaud. Or give me your phone number.

I’m not the type of mom who schedules playdates or carpools, but lately I’ve been around a lot of parents who are like that. I think they worship their kids.To be honest, they make me a little nervous.

My own mother takes my daughter to ballet class once a week at 5:30 and I show up a few minutes later, when I get out of school. When I arrive the other parents have already formed their little groups and begun comparing their children’s progress.

I don’t fit in.

Not only do they carefully monitor their daughter’s – or son’s – dancing developments, I think they actually make their kids practice outside of the scheduled class. Next they compare twice a week soccer practice, after dinner piano lessons, cheerleading summers, ice skating sessions at sunrise, and weekend playdates.

I think they are trying to outdo each other.

First, who has the money to pay for all these lessons? Second, why would you want to drive your child all these places every week? Third, does your kid even like these things? Or do you like them? And finally, what ever happened to just playing?

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not very old. But I remember when my sister and I were young, we played in the front yard with the other neighborhood kids. Our mom loved us, but she did not worship us. We did not rule the house or the dinner table. We knew that everyone didn’t always make the team, and mom wasn’t obligated to buy our way onto it. We also knew that mom couldn’t drop everything to schedule a playdate. And we turned out just fine!

I could make friends, have arguments, resolve them, and keep playing without any adult interaction. We had imagination. I’m not sure if kids do anymore. Instead they have lives so structured, they probably need their own planners.

I don’t think the other ballet parents dislike me, but I’m positive they don’t know what to make of me.

I wave to my daughter once or twice through the window that separates her dance classroom from the lobby, and then I let her do her thing. I don’t stand there and shake my finger at her, then frown and point to the teacher because she isn’t paying attention. Ballet time is a great time for me to watch the television shows I just downloaded onto my iPod. Or read a non-school book.

I can’t commit to playdates because I have homework. I don’t like to participate in school fundraisers because I have no interest in outdoing the next parent. And I don’t see the point in forcing my daughter to do every sport and activity I wanted to do when I was young.

I love my daughter. I provide her with a house, clothes, meals, toys, books and a bi-monthly trip to a museum. But I’m not going to drop everything and sign her up for lessons and sports and organized activities.

Why should I? These things aren’t for the sake of our kids; they are for us, to make us feel better about our success as a parent. Maybe we don’t worship our kids. Maybe we worship the image an overworked, overachieving kid gives us.

I think my daughter would rather spend time with me.

December 2, 2007

Go to Top