Parenting Snapshot

There is a mom in Gracie’s daycare that drives me nuts.

When I volunteered to be a parent liaison for the daycare, I had no idea what I was volunteering for. Most of the time it is fine. It is kind of cool. We are notified of stuff before everyone else.

Sometimes it is a royal pain. Like when dealing with the complainers. We have become the vehicle of said complaints, because they just don’t want to forward them themselves. Every so often they are legit. Most of the time they are not.

My latest gripe was an email to forward onto the Director the week. The concerns were:
A) The children are not getting enough fresh air and said parents thinks all the kids (even infants) should be going outside until the weather is BELOW 35 degrees.
B) She is concerned with the amount of ‘scary videos’ being shown and wants to have pre-approval authority before exposing the children to new movies and learning video games.

I was annoyed with the thought of having to forward such ridiculousness. My counter part drafted a very nice disclaimer to the Director before emailing it. I on the other hand, wrote a saga of why this person is a whack job. It included a mini-diatribe about how we CHOOSE to work and we CHOSE this daycare, so shouldn’t we trust them enough to know what is and is not appropriate. Thankfully, I deleted it before it left my desktop.

Today though, I had to take a step back and re-evaluate.

Today was picture day. I was told pictures would start at 9 am, so at 8:45 I changed Gracie into her cute little dress. 9 am came and went with no picture lady.

At 9:10, the head teacher announced that it would still be a little bit and that dresses were not compatible with playing so Grace should put her shirt back on. I said, "Eh, she’s fine. We will just work on walking until the picture people show up."

The teacher apparently disagreed because she unbuttoned the back of her dress and had it off before I could blink.

I was so mad. In my head I screamed, "I’m her mother, not you! If I want her to suffer and crawl around in dresses everyday that is my option, not yours!”

In real life I said nothing. I didn’t want to get into a fight with the lady who takes care of her for 8 hours a day over something so simple. I do wish I had said something though.

I need to keep reminding myself that yes, while I need them, they need me too. Even though I am giving up 8 hours a day of hands on parenting for my career, I am still the parent. I am still the decision maker for Gracie, not the teacher.

From this, I now have a slightly new outlook on the crazy, overbearing parent. I still think she is wrong, but SHE thinks she is right. And that is what matters.