Tomorrow is the last day of school (if you can actually call it a day - it is really just 2 hours). And with the last day of school comes good-byes and good-bye gifts.
Yesterday, I attended a kindergarten picnic at Little One’s school. It felt like it was 100 degrees outside and I was hot, cranky, and tired. As I sat there on the damp grass with my very dark sunglasses on, I watched the other parents and their interactions with others around them. 45 minutes later I was disgusted. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower. The phony laughs, the pretentious gifts that were given to teachers, the comments, “Oh, you got her a better gift than I got, I guess I will have to go get another one and give it to her tomorrow,” and my favorite, “Your wrapping is prettier than mine, that’s not fair.” It is amazing their children are not more bratty than they are, with parents like that.
Out of 18 children in my son’s class, 17 of them gave presents, some of them were really expensive too. The only one that didn’t give, was me. And the teacher noticed. BOY, did she notice. I didn’t even get a good-bye when I left, she didn’t even make eye contact with me. And yes I noticed because she made her way around to all the parents and thanked them for coming and for their gifts. I thought about buying gifts for all the teachers, but I realized that if I just spent $10 per teacher, it would have set me back several hundred dollars. My son doesn’t just have 1 teacher, like my daughter, he has numerous ones, and aides too. And I can’t start to pick and choose who will get a gift (even though I could have because of the ones who are deserving and those who aren’t), then they will really shoot me dirty looks next year. I decided back at Christmastime when I was faced with the same problem that I would bake Christmas cookies and give all the teachers & aides a plate of nicely wrapped cookies. They all loved them, except my son’s main teacher. She never said thank you, and was the only one who didn’t write me a thank you note (not that I wanted a thank you note because I didn’t). Bitch. I guess it came to me back in December that I wouldn’t be buying any end of the year gift for her.
As the class mom for both of my children’s classes, I got asked several times by parents about having every child contribute some money for one joint gift. When I said that I wasn’t doing that, it was met with a “uh, What?” When I told them that I don’t like putting pressure on the families who are struggling financially and how there were times in the past when I had already bought a small gift and I was forced to contribute more money and I couldn’t afford it. And there were a few times that I was told if I didn’t contribute they couldn’t get the gift they wanted (like we were the reason for the teacher being deprived of a fancy extravagant gift).
I believe all this gift giving just gets out of hand. Gifts should be because you want to give them. It should be something thoughtful and because you feel they went above and beyond. Like my daughter’s teacher. She has to be the best teacher at the elementary school. She has gone to extremes to help my daughter this year. My daughter wasn’t struggling with her math or reading or writing or spelling, in fact she was ahead of the class in those areas. She was struggling with her emotions. And this 3rd grade teacher finally was able to break through and help her. This was the first time in years that I didn’t receive one phone call about Drama Princesses behavior. My daughter had a fantastic year and I owe it all to the dedicated teacher. So tomorrow I am giving her a small gift certificate to get a pedicure at her favorite salon and I wrote her a thank you letter. It was not just a simple thank you, I wrote her a detailed letter about the impact she made on my daughter and how that impacted the family. She deserved the gift and the letter. That is what gifts should be about; it is not just something you have to buy because everyone else does. I wish I could send this message to my son’s teacher. Who knows, maybe she secretly reads Anonymous blogs?
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1 comments:
good post! I agree. Gift giving has become a "show off" session for people. I hate that i am forced into it every year, but we decided no matter how people spend on us that would stick to our budgets and give what we thought was appropriate (and if that meant someone got a better gift than others, oh well).
My husband's grandmother was a teacher.... and we recently went through a lot of her stuff that was still in the house. BIG boxes full of SHIT from students over the years. Sure they meant something but man...... 20 trinkets every year for 20 years... you do the math!
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