 |
Back to school
Flip flops? Face books?
|
 |
Each year in this poignant transitional season, when gorgeous summer days overlap with school, I find myself negotiating a new set of rights and responsibilities for each child, prioritizing the battles I choose (and often lose) with my children for the new school year. This process includes shifting part of their care and oversight back to the Montgomery County Public School System (MCPS). So here is my list of back-to-school issues, ranging from frivolous to fraught.
Flip-flops
In the 1960s and 70s (my distant youth), flip-flops were for the beach, or the shower. Wearing flip-flops, I feel vaguely half-dressed. A couple of years ago, I tried to make the case that flip-flops were inappropriate attire for school because they discouraged healthy running, provided no protection from the crush of awkward adolescent feet in crowded hallways, and somehow reflected teen insolence and disrespect. I admired the fact that the Washington Waldof School prohibits flip-flops. I sighed at the discovery that several MCPS high schools now sell flip-flops printed with school mascots.
But I made my choice of school systems long ago. And as my daughter enters 8th grade, I’ve completely caved on this issue. It seems the entire female student body at Takoma Park Middle School (TPMS) wears nothing but flip-flops on all but the bitterest midwinter days (and sometimes even then). Sneakers have been demoted to a piece of athletic equipment that stays in the gym locker at school. At least this eliminates the need to remember which days to wear sneakers for gym. So score one for the kids.
Cell phones
I caved on this one too. Do you sense a pattern developing here? Two years ago, TPMS policy still cast cell phones as a novel and somewhat suspect technology for teens and preteens. Parents were required to meet with the Principal and make a case for why their child should get special permission to carry a cell. For two years, I ignored my daughter’s pleas for a cell phone. I didn’t want to pay for it, and I was clinging to a Luddite yearning for simplicity. I am ashamed to admit now what has really been going on. We’ve been mooching off our friends (thanks Diane, thanks Nicole) who did pay for their daughters to have cell phones. Almost every day after school for two years my middle schooler has called me—on a friend’s cell--to tell me where she’s heading.
In the welcome letter from TPMS this summer, Principal Renay Johnson announced that cell phones are now allowed at school, as long as they are kept “out of sight with ringers off during the school day.” I still have ambivalence on this issue. I know middle school kids who have lost their cells. This week, another friend found her son’s cellphone in his pants pocket, after it had gone through the washer and dryer (it still worked). But when I put my 13-year-old on a plane to fly solo from Dulles to Oakland to visit my brother this summer, I finally arrived in the 21st century. She got the cell phone.
Astroturf
Yup, I caved. My middle-school daughter is allowed to take the Ride On with friends to “Silver Sprung” and hang out on the Astroturf. Here, I have to admit my own bizarre nostalgia for the open space of the Astroturf, even though it’s not even gone yet. My passion for green plastic grass stems from a single magical autumn evening with the families of my 10-year-old son’s soccer team, each of us with our chosen local take-out food, sprawled in a loose circle on the turf. The kids kicked the ball around, some nearby teens strummed a guitar. It’s hard to imagine where such a lovely scene will occur when that lot sprouts concrete benches and planters with small patches of grass.
So I am grateful that my adolescent came of age just in time to experience the heady buzz of being on the turf without parents. The groups circle each other and “chill,” kids from different middle schools compare notes. And it all goes on under the watchful eye of my village, with Takoma and Silver Spring neighbors frequently walking by, serving as parental proxies. The local kids who are teens right now will forever proudly label themselves as the Astroturf generation.
The fact that middle school students can take the Ride On buses for free after school by showing their school picture IDs helped to convince me that letting go is okay in this case. I also gave in this summer on the “take Metro with friends into DC to shop at Urban Outfitters” issue. I do subscribe to the belief that the orienteering skills of our children will be stunted if we don’t allow them more room to explore. So why am I known as a strict mom? Read on…
R-rated movies
We’re not doing them. PG-13 movies provide more than sufficient violence, scariness, rude language and sex for a 13-year-old. Despite a career as a journalist who generally opposed censorship, I actually favored the MCPS ban on PG-13 films in middle schools. Films of great merit with R ratings do exist. You have your entire adult life to see them. I’m willing to entertain individual exceptions, and to reconsider the flat rule in high school. But for now, no.
Weekday screen time
There isn’t any. Not during the school year. Did I mention that I have a reputation as a strict mom? Without television (or video games, or internet window shopping), time in the day miraculously expands to allow for quality work and leisure. Reading. Hanging out with friends. Playing Boggle or poker. Fashion design. Building a maze for the guinea pigs. Listening to music. Walking the dog. Observing and sketching a praying mantis.
The rule about screen time has corollaries which may seem obvious but need emphasis in middle school. No instant messaging (get your email on the weekend, or pick up the phone). No MySpace or Facebook. It’s dangerous and illegal for kids under 14, and MCPS guidance backs me up on this one. I do make screen-time exceptions. Homework necessitates computer use. Art projects (encouraged) may include creating and playing with digital photos, video creation, or other artwork on the Mac. Allowable television includes the Olympics, and baseball postseason games involving the Red Sox. Why the Red Sox? Hey, I’m still the decider. At least, for a little while longer.
Sue Katz Miller is co-President of the Piney Branch Elementary School PTA this year. Thanks to Linda Tipton for job-sharing with me!
Want to post a comment to this article? Click here.
|
