Use: Immediate: TFN (Till Further Notice)
Time: 90 seconds
Agency: No-It-All Moms
Title: “Warning: Kindergarten is a Project”
It’s more than half way through the school year and no one warned you. No one mentioned it. No one pulled you aside to make sure you were mentally, physically, emotionally prepared for what I am about to tell you:
Kindergarten. Is a project.
Today’s schools will send a Tyvex envelope home with at least five actionable flyers… nightly. Many, if not all, of these flyers will have due dates that have already passed. Additional paperwork will include every worksheet and art project your child has ever touched. Process these quickly or they will swallow your dining room table.
Speaking of paperwork, brace yourself for homework. And flash cards. Set a goal early and keep on schedule. Delegate responsibility to your freshly minted school-aged child to remember due dates and turn things in. You have enough to remember. Make it their responsibility now or you will find yourself stuck in this particular dead-end job years, possibly decades, from now.
And remember how preschool fed your child two wholesome meals and snacks a day? The time for gratitude has passed. You can ponder your ungratefulness as you spend your weekends filling little baggies with uninspired nutritional snacks. Or as you drive across town for two pick-ups and drop-offs. Hopefully you’ve raised your child to naturally question school lunch offerings titled “Bean and Cheese Chimi Nada.”
If you’ve decided to support your local public school and reverse the decline of diversity in our educational system, expect your kids to rarely be at school. It’s a system built for an agrarian society, even though the kids are not coming home each day to tend the farmstead. They will be out of school for at least a week a quarter and most Fridays. They will start school at 8:30, giving you exactly negative 30 minutes to make that 9am meeting. Get a conference call number and a mute button… you’re going to need it.
Last but not least, you’ve been promoted to chief sales manager. “The Man” now goes by See’s. Your job consists of overseeing Walk-a-Thon sign-ups, candy sales and box top collecting. Scrape together a charitable donation fund. Check your company match program— assuming you’re still gainfully employed given all those interrupted con calls… Give away your money and then stick it to The Man, guilt free.
This has been a public service announcement. Kindergarten is a project.
This is your life.
This is your life on kindergarten.
Any questions?
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