fourstonesoup.com

Rant:

Organizations pimping themselves to kids at school.  It seems on the edge of seedily manipulative to get kids FIRED UP with Brightly Colored Stickers! Enticing Brochures! Representative Sales Pitches!  I mean, it’s a non-school organization advertising ‘aggressively’ (in my opinion as the parent of a K and 1st grader) in a school situation.  Recently it’s those damn Boy Scouts.  I’m not sure exactly what the promotion situation is but Drew came home ALL AQUIVER with excitement about Going Camping! Hiking! Roasting Marshmallows! Doing Cool Boy Stuff! and said that He Just HAD to become a Boy Scout and all of the cool kids are doing it.

Ahem.  (I feel like Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter.  {Ahem, Ahem})

First of all, participating in Boy Scouts is Not Free.  You have to pay  dues and pay for the mandatory uniform.  Also, while the regular weekly activities are included with the dues, the Fun, Cool stuff with Tents and Sharp Pointy Sticks are extra.  Of course, Drew doesn’t understand this.  He just hears Outdoor Activities and he’s all gung-ho to go.  It doesn’t help that for a week solid it seems that we got stuff Every Day in his folder–it was like a political campaign.  Of course, it’s not just Boy Scouts.  It’s the YMCA, the various sports leagues, the area Karate Studios.  And Drew, being Drew, just does not understand why he can’t do all of these fun things.  We try to explain that A) He’s already doing soccer–which is not exactly a cheap activity and it involves quite a time commitment. B) It’s not like Boy Scouts is all party zone and marshmallows all of the time. C) We cannot participate in multiple activities with multiple children requiring multiple late nights per week.  What he hears is “You are missing all of the fun that all those other kids are having.”  I wearily accept that schools allow SOME organizations advertising access to my kids’ backpacks.  I don’t LIKE it, but I accept it.  What I do not like is that they cannot simply put a brochure into the folder, they have to Sell it with the deliberately misleading videos (it’s not all fun all of the time), aggressive marketing tactics (for a first grader, anyway) and the rah-rah ‘everyone should be a part of this!’ attitude.

It’s not just the Boy Scouts and maybe I’m a overly sensitive to this sort of thing (YA THINK?).  But Boy Scouts is the one that Drew’s driving me CRAZY wanting to join.  And if they had simply sent home a flyer in his folder, Bryan and I could have discussed it without the eyes shining with excitement and the “PULEEAAAASE, MOM” and the damn sticker on his chest, reminding him that He Should Be a Boy Scout!  It may be that he does it and LOVES it.  We may end up being a Scout Family.  Who knows?  It may be that we try it and find out it’s not for us.  But of course, that’s not before we pay the dues, buy the mandatory uniform and pay to attend the campout.  It may be that this is one of those Life Lesson moments for us in terms of not getting to do everything.  But I would have preferred to make that decision without the propaganda and the advertising ploy applied to My First Grader.

I would just like to add “GET OFF MY LAWN!”

All of this leads me to think that I probably need to get Mexican food and get laid tonight because WOOBOY, an entire blog post bashing the Boy Scouts is a New Low for me.

For those of you who do not know the whole story, here it is in summary form:

1) Upon the birth of my first child, I quit my job as a teacher because I was VERY idealistic and ridiculously naive and I was very confident I would be a great mother, stay-at-home wife and person and when the perfect moment arrived, I would fall right back into teaching with my stellar credentials and reliable contacts.

2) Eventually, we sold the starter home we had been living in (right as the economy was tanking) to live in a teeny tiny rental house on family property thinking this would allow me the opportunity to continue to stay at home with our two small-ish children and actually survive on my husband’s meager salary whilst enjoying the benefits of living next door to Bryan’s granddad, picking fruit from the trees, eating blueberries off the bushes and climbing trees in our back yard.

3) Our salary was slashed (woohoo!) for about a year as Bryan’s company tried to stay afloat.  Our children both started full-time school and I dipped a toe into the waters of employment…cautiously.  Nothing happened.  Recently, Bryan’s salary went back to it’s former meager glory.

4) Both of my kids are in full-time school and I am still unemployed.  I have dabbled in professional photography (meaning people pay me to take their pictures) and have done fairly well so far but it by NO means substantiates a large income and in it’s infancy state, my business is a lot of giving and not so much the taking (as in padding our account).  I realize that this is perfectly normal for a budding business and I am not exactly parading around drumming up customers but…

I am tired of being a one income family.

I really, really am.

I would LOVE to have some disposable income.  I would love to not worry as the bills come in.  I would love to not have to nickel and dime everything.

But there are literally NO jobs for teachers around here.  And I’m not exactly swimming with potential as an employee, am I?

My resume reads like this:

1) I am rilly,rilly smart.  Like no, seriously.  Whaa???  NO, I PROMISE!  In all of those standardized tests, I always scored in the 95%-ile.  Whaa??  Those things don’t COUNT?  IN REAL LIFE?  Shit.

2) I am quasi-creative.  I write.  Well, I string together somewhat amusing sentences using lots of dashes (because my comma usage—well, it’s questionable).  Oh, wait, no.  I don’t exactly have any experience in actual writing and this blog isn’t exactly widely read (Hello, most readers who know me in real life and live within a fifty mile radius of my house) and my view numbers are…not exponentially high.  Um…no.  I haven’t actually studied any fabled writers.  And I have no experience with writing anything but this blog.  And I have nothing very interesting to say.  But I do read a lot…of books and blogs.  That counts, right?  I’m not even going to pretend I can cook, clean or parent well.  Perhaps I can write a photojournalistic column with a snarky view on parenting.  Yeah!  That’s not a tired schtick, right?  And editors should be KNOCKING on my DOOR to edit my grammatically-nightmarish submissions

Crap.

BUT!  I do photography.  People pay me REAL CASH MONEY to take pictures and photoshop the hell out of those pictures!  I mean, sure.  The point *could* be made that I spend about five or more hours on each photoshoot and the editing.  So that puts me at the average wage of….a Target employee.  And TONS of people “do photography” on the side, as evidenced by the “like” pages of my friends on facebook.  Um…I mean…

WELL FINE!  I can paste and glue and cut like a mofo.  Seriously, I am the Queen of Glitter.  I went through an entire FOUR YEARS of COLLEGE devoted to learning how to teach kids how to glue in a developmentally-appropriate way.

But…er…those aren’t exactly skills most businesses desire?

3) I AM SNARKY, SARCASTIC and IRREVERENT!  What?  Isn’t that what EVERYONE wants in a future employee?  No?  But I’m Witty!  Where are you going?

4) Errrr…I…er…I

I am so underwhelming.

And unemployed.

And depressed now.

Crap.

We are so screwed.