Job Security for Me

As an alternative high school teacher, I just LOVE bad parenting. Now, many of my students have really great parents and have had other issues—illness, family member deaths, poverty—that have put them behind in school and into my classroom. But kids with bad parents are almost guaranteed to end up with me.

Yesterday was a perfect example. I was running a bunch of errands, and somewhere near the Target dressing room, I overheard this:

“MoMMEEEE!”

“I said ‘No’. I am not buying a watch for a three-year-old. A three-year-old doesn’t need a watch!”

[At this point I am both happy to hear a firm parent and a little sad that there’s one kid who won’t end up in my classroom; but then I certainly hope I can retire before this little one makes it to her junior year anyway.]

“MoMMEEEE!”

“Why do you always argue when I TOLD YOU ‘NO’?”

“MoMMEEEE!”

“Okay but I’ll just get you a plastic one, not a real watch.”

Aha! Success!! I wanted to call over and say,

“ Hey—I can certainly tell you why she keeps whining. For the same reason my dogs don’t beg from me, but they do beg from my mom. It works!

But then, I want whomever takes over for me when I retire to have nice, full classroom of students whose parents couldn’t say no and mean it.  Good luck. By then, teachers will probably be getting paid based on how kids raised like this do on their standardized tests. So good luck.

But mostly, good luck to the little girl who is in for a big fat trauma when she realizes the real world couldn’t care less how much she whines.