12 August 2008

Back to School Shopping

Being a parent is a lot of fun. However, I must say that for those of you who have chosen not to have children, you sure are saving tons of money. I love blogs like this so that I can vent about things that just don't seem to make any sense.

We had to go shopping for the kids to go back to school and I can’t believe how much money it takes to buy clothes, shoes, and school supplies for two little girls to go to school! It is nothing like when my brother and I went school shopping and our parents filled a buggy full of clothes and felt like they walked out with a bargain for the year. This is crazy! Sales circulars are carefully planned and distributed, just to get you in to the store. Once you get there, it is a totally different scene. The prices were either only good from 6-9 am (no, I am not an early morning person) or everything they advertised was either sold out or never there in the first place. Then, they have those “tricky” items that you pick up, thinking it is the item advertised in the paper, but it is really twice as expensive, it just looks like the picture.

 
The back to school supply list is ridiculous too. I’m sorry, but why should a child going to kindergarten have to bring 3 boxes of tissue, 8 glue sticks, every size known to man of Ziploc bags and a bottle of hand soap to school? Don’t our taxes at least provide soap for children to wash their hands and tissue to blow their noses? My 4^th grader does not have to bring soap and tissue, she got a normal list with pencils, markers, paper and folders. So will she not have soap provided or did my kindergartner essentially provide soap for all of the kids in the school? Why didn’t my kindergartner need crayons or pencils? Will she not be writing yet? Are they just going to glue together their Ziploc bags all year? I don’t know about this. “Wait ‘till they get a load of me” at orientation this year….

 

Filed under: Children

Comments

# mike said:

I still remember my AP Biology teacher who showed us a list of supplies we would need for the class. It all ran up to about a hundred dollars or so worth of supplies. So why aren't these materials provided for us by the schools? Well, why should they spend good money on stuff they can make parents bring in. If it's something they need, what horrible parent would deprive their poor child of the necessary materials to learn and grow up to be a good person? And think of all the great new desks and comfortable leather chairs the administration can buy with that.

When my high school faced budget cuts, they didn't even consider cutting any of the unnecessary wastes of money or extra projects. They cut our printing budgets so we had to write out every test and every page of notes. When we complained to our parents about our sore hands, they raised a big fuss about how unfair it was that the schools didn't have enough money to take care of us. By using us as pawns, the school board got the money they wanted. They really know how to manipulate parents.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 5:47 PM

# writer lady said:

I have only one child to equip for first grade, but I'm with you on the new, longer lists. Tissues, hand sanitizer, etc., that you'd think would be supplied by the schools aren't any longer. Further, we have to buy all supplies in multiples to pick up the slack for parents who aren't able to buy even one of each. Though my heart is all for this, my wallet is whining.

This year I bought the lions share of Jack's school supplies at Dollar General and Big Lots, but I still spent a bloody fortune at Target getting the rest.

I was surprised many, many years ago, when friends were entering the teaching profession, at how little schools actually provided for their classrooms. And it's only gotten worse. My son's kindergarten teacher bought chalk, markers, paper, pencils, books, decorations (including an alphabet poster and seasonal decorations), aquariums, terrariums, snacks and drinks for his classroom. Her dad donated a microscope. Teachers chipped in together and provided all the necessary supplies and labor to establish a garden.

I feel very lucky that the teachers were so generous to provide not only the essentials, but the extra things that made learning more interesting and exciting. To help them, I quit buying trinkets for his teachers at Christmas time, and instead gave gift certificates to defray their classroom costs. Heck, I don't care if they buy school supplies for their own kids!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 10:44 AM