Opinions
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Back-to-school nostalgia |
by Dale Burgos
Early morning wakeup calls filled with arguments or monetary incentives to get up and out to school on time – that was me many moons ago. But no more!
September marks the beginning for Canadian K-12 children to go to school. It wasn’t long ago that I dreaded school day mornings, getting the kids out of bed, fed and dressed in multiple layers of snow gear for those cold Winnipeg winter mornings. I remember the anxiety of having to do that day after day and year after year. Those times are long gone but this September, I find myself feeling nostalgic.
The youngest of the Burgos bunch graduated high school last summer, which means I am free from the shackles of pain inducing morning rituals. It wasn’t all bad but I’m curious if you’re going through the same routine. Here’s what it looked like for me.
You have to have the right DRIP
(Insert my kids’ groans of embarrassment). I previously wrote about buying clothes from Randy River in Garden City Shopping Centre back in the 90s. These days maybe it is Lululemon, Garage, Winners or that online store Shein. The goal was to always find that new outfit for the first day of school. It was also important to find the right backpack and fill it with the coolest school supplies. In elementary school, my favourite were the scented markers – blueberry was my favourite. It couldn’t have been good to sniff markers all the time, but I think I turned out fine.
Lunchbox roulette
Lunches always seemed better in September than in June. Kids were excited for sandwiches, frozen yogurt tubes and granola bars, but taste buds change over the school year and what was once acceptable comes home on a Friday and is not found until lunch prep on Monday morning. Cheese and salami do not smell great after sitting at room temperature for three days! Lunches evolved over the years from PB&J, Lunchables to Chef Boy-ar-dee filled Thermoses. I still remember some days where we raided the pantry and the kids got a package of Skyflakes, gummies and a Pop Tart. It was not my proudest parent moment.
School photos
There is really no need to send your child with freshly clean clothes or spend more than two minutes on their hair. Depending on when photos are taken it could very well be after a recess in the rain or the aforementioned PB&J stains on their white shirt. If they are lucky enough to get to the photo session clean, there is always a chance their smile, in a word, sucks. The universe will do what it can to wreck that school photo.
Awkward conversations
Parent-teacher conferences always seemed awkward to me. My kids are perfect in my eyes. If anything less is implied, my eyes begin to glaze over and I shift my attention to the fingerpaint artwork hung on the walls. The teachers quickly realized where my kids inherited their short attention spans. Since we’re on the topic, what have you done with all the artwork the kids took home? Do we really have to hold on to bins upon bins of artwork not worthy of the family fridge?
Homework
The kids aren’t around, we can be honest here. Do we actually like doing homework with the kids at the dinner table? I sure didn’t. As adults, have we ever needed to know exact angles in an isosceles triangle or know what year Jacques Cartier arrived in Canada? Architects and historians, that question wasn’t for you.
Fun fact, I failed a writing assignment in Grade 5 because my penmanship was terrible. Guess what, I haven’t had to use cursive writing since, so take that Ms. K!
Saved the best for last. Scholastic book fairs were the bomb! Nuff said.
Dale manages the corporate communications and community relations department for a city in BC.