Let's Talk About...Going Back to School

Ok. It's that time again. Some dread it, others can't wait for it.

I am talking about going back to school. As a parent, you might be happy to see some structure begin and a quiet house for a few hours. For kids, you might be looking forward to seeing your friends again and getting on with this thing called "education."

Personally, as a parent, I missed my kids when they went back to school. Of course, I got over it in about a week. As a kid, it was my worst time of year.

Let me explain. My birthday is at the end of July. The summer would be humming along with swimming, T.V., hanging out with friends, and sleeping late. Then, BOOM, my birthday rolls around and those Back-to-School ads start flashing on the T.V. screen every ten minutes.

One moment I am lying on the floor, eating Oreos, watching "Bewitched" and then the T.V. would suddenly yell, "It's Back-to-School shopping time!" Those ads sent a flood of dread through me and cast a pallor over the rest of the summer. It isn't that I hated school, it's that I was having such a good time at home.

Whether as a parent or a student, we would soon go back-to-school shopping, which was fun to get new supplies but was also a reminder of what was on the horizon. We would buy clothes, pencil cases, six binders, paper (college or wide ruled?), Pee-Chee folders, backpacks, markers, pencils (colored and regular), rulers, lunch boxes ("Barbie" was a hard "no"), those terrible P.E. clothes that always included something my kids called “clown shorts,” and crayons. Crayons every year. Even in the sixth grade! I never understood why.

My son used to lobby for that 120-count Crayon box complete with a sharpener. I opted for the eight-pack "classic colors," reasoning that we already had a million partially used crayons at home. Who needs a color called "Canary" when you already have "Yellow?" Apparently, he did. He never forgave me.

Then there was the trip to Costco to stock up on snacks and appropriate lunch items: Capri Suns, Fruit Roll-Ups, Ding Dongs, you know, all those nutritional foods. I would bet that most parents never look forward to making lunches every day.

Then came time to figure out what to wear on the first day of school. As a kid, I naturally wanted to look cool. But when I surveyed my back-to-school clothes, all I found were weird checkered green pants, those blocky t-shirts with one pocket, black clunky shoes, and often a polyester top with an awkward bow. Cringy. Why did my mom always pick out my back-to-school clothes? In fairness to my mom, maybe it was because she was buying for six kids and "cool clothes" would break the bank. But at the moment, I just felt dowdy.

About a week or two before school started, we would all drive to our deserted schools to check the schedule posted on the bulletin board. We would either be happy we got the teacher we wanted, or our mood would take another deep dive. (By the way, empty schools are pretty creepy).

We would then figure out where our classrooms were and my parents would say something encouraging like, "You are so lucky, you got Miss Knight. This is going to be a great year." But I just wanted to go home.

Then of course there are the logistics of bus schedules, sign-ups, sign-ins, immunizations, alarm clocks, sports, and the worst: Homework.

And here's the irony:

One of my favorite summer games was playing "school" where I forced my two little brothers to sit patiently and listen to me teach whatever popped into my head. My name was "Ms. Varé" (var-ā). I thought that name was oh, so French.

Class would begin with roll call. I thought the names of our "students" were hilarious. "Chuck Fudge ('here'), Olivia O. Fire ('here'), Luke Buck ('here'), Lily Pad ('here'), and my favorite--Butch Bull ('here')."

My brothers would sit on the floor in front of me while I would teach math, English, science and art. I had a grade book. Seriously. I loved it. My brothers endured it. I think they tolerated it because we went out for recess and we ate lunch. And wouldn't you know it, that was often everyone's favorite part of real school.

So, I ask, if it was so fun playing school during the summer, why wasn't it fun to go back to the real thing?

Transitions are tough. But what I came to realize by the end of September each year was that despite a lack of crayons and an abundance of weird clothes, sometimes real school can be fun too.