Part two of my hatred of parent teacher conference is definitely the parent part. Specifically when I stand there in the hallway waiting for my turn and I get the pleasure of meeting some of the other parents. oh joy of joys! There is always art hanging in the hallway outside of the door and parents looking at it proudly like their kid is some kind of prodigy and they're just now recognizing it by the way their little rascal glued the head on their paper leprechaun. "My child colored in the lines!" And I'm like "my kid used a lot of glitter. on the crotch area. in fact only on the crotch area. what the hell? I'm going to go ahead and take this down."
There is absotively nothing wrong with being proud of your kids and I have bragged about the accomplishments of my minions a time or two. But there is bragging and then there is this really weird thing some parents do that take it a step, or more like ten steps beyond pride. They call you out. They compete. They challenge you with their children's accomplishments. And I am not good at this game. I feel like I'm being forced to play dungeons and dragons. Why do I feel that way? Oh I don't know because you say things like, "my daughter scored above average in reading, she plays the flute and won the science fair" and then I get confused and yell "my daughter is half orc, half elf, with six levels of wizard and four levels of theif. And.., and.., and she can heal things"
I really shouldn't feel so befuddled during these impromptu show downs. All of my children do exceptionally well scholastically. All of them have amazing personalities and talents. Maybe I have trouble with the "who's spawn is better" face-off because I'm fully aware that while they are awesome in some ways, they are also total dumb asses. My daughter once got her foot stuck in the toilet because she wanted to see how far she could put it in there before it got stuck. $&@%#!!! Who does that?! Who is sitting around one day and decides they need to finally answer the burning question - can I get stuck in the toilet?
I don't think the parents who start these showdowns are willing to admit their kids are also idiots. All they want to vocalize is their children's accomplishments, which they take all the credit for. Taking credit for the positive is fine I guess. It's when they don't claim equal credit for the faults that annoys the shit out of me. Somehow Little Timmy's ability to spell cat is all thanks to mommy but if little Timmy is also a spoiled selfish little twat it's not because mommy is delusional its because he's been hanging around the neighbor kid............ because the neighbors are liberals of course.
Or maybe this parent jousting is just too foreign to me because I don't take credit for the good in my kids. These little squirts are pretty damn impressive despite my special brand of mothering.
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