It never ceases to amaze me how people can be controlled by words. Words of hate, threatening words, words of love. They’re just sounds we hear or characters we see. They’re nothing more than we let them be.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Well, we all know that can be untrue. Children can grow strong and healthy when fed a diet of nice words, and they can grow weak and sick on a diet of harsh words. Words can hit harder than fists when thrown in anger between people who love each other. Words can heal wounds and stop wars.

Markus Zusak illustrated the dichotomy between the power of words and the emptiness of them more beautifully in The Book Thief than I ever could here. So, I’ll stop that whimsy and get to the words I want to talk about.

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I would like to be able to tell you that I am one of those perpetually peaceful people who seem to radiate a slightly smug contentedness from deep within their soul. I would like to be able to tell you that I write in a gratitude diary every day, right after my 6am Yogalates session and bowl of organic muesli. I would like to be able to tell you that I am able to handle anything my children throw at me – figuratively speaking – because I am inherently calm and happy and balanced. I would like to be able to tell you I’m like that because I would like to be like that but the thing is, I’m not. Maybe in a parallel universe, but not this one. I’m just not good at relaxing. During the birth of my second daughter, I tried very hard to breathe deeply through the contractions, to focus my energies inward and breathe the pain out. My husband later told me that I sounded like a horse.

In this universe, I’m just your average, garden-variety ineffective parent whose favourite method for calming down involves a large glass of shiraz and an even larger block of chocolate, and whose body would simply snap in half if made to do the downward dog.

When my mother was a stay-at-home-mother of four she went to yoga classes once a week – we used to say she was going to Yoghurt Classes – and she once told me that yoga saved her sanity in those days. So one day I went to a yoga class for new mothers and stretched for about 50 minutes before being told to lie down and listen to the lovely music and breathe deeply and just as I felt the tension melt away and the thoughts leave my troubled mind and just as I reached that state of blissful contentment… I fell asleep. I might have snored. Well, at least I didn’t neigh.

I really love the idea of meditation, but although I have tried I just can’t do it without the snoring. So, like all good mothers, I am living the life of a calm and contented human being vicariously through my children. My kids are learning to meditate. In our house, every day ends with reading from a book called The Wishing Star: Meditations for Children by Marneta Viegas. There’s a good reason why this is a good thing.

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In case you’re not familiar with ultimate fighting, it started off as a no holds barred event, which after people started throwing around labels of “human cockfighting”, further sanctions were put in place and now it is billed as “mixed martial arts”. The end result still involves beating the other guy to a pulp, however. Now, according to a report by the Associated Press, the violent sport is becoming popular with the younger set:

The bare-knuckle fights are now attracting competitors as young as 6 whose parents treat the sport as casually as wrestling, Little League or soccer.

The changes were evident on a recent evening in southwest Missouri, where a team of several young boys and one girl grappled on gym mats in a converted garage.

Two members of the group called the “Garage Boys Fight Crew” touched their thin martial-arts gloves in a flash of sportsmanship before beginning a relentless exchange of sucker punches, body blows and swift kicks.

No blood was shed. And both competitors wore protective gear. But the bout reflected the decidedly younger face of ultimate fighting. The trend alarms medical experts and sports officials who worry that young bodies can’t withstand the pounding.

I certainly have no problem with children being involved in traditional martial arts, I think it’s very good for their minds and bodies. But this is taking it to another level. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I’m just not too keen on enrolling my kid in a sport that has its roots as a “fight to the death”. How about you, would you allow your child to be involved in junior ultimate fighting?

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So, I’d like to clear a few things up.

To My Friends Who Do Not Have Their Own Spawn: I have a child, remember?

To My Friends Who Have Their Own Spawn: It’s OK to have a child AND a social life, remember?

Sadly, these clarifications are sorely lacking in my own social circles.

 My husband and I are at the weird age where some but not all of our friends have kids. We have the friends who have kids and have since year #1 of their marriage. I call them the Parental Posse. You know the kind–get married, get pregnant right away, forget all semblance of their twenties and/or fun and/or a life outside of their kids. The kind of friends who suddenly re-materialized once we had our own Blessed Event. These are the friends who only want to do things like go to the park or a baseball game. Which I’m all for–if there’s beer and a babysitter. But no, these friends can only participate in activities involving their own little miracles. And can’t ever meet you for dinner because they “Can’t find a babysitter” or “Little Susie has the flu” or “I’m attached to my child at the hip and can’t possibly function with other adults on a level not involving discussions about my child’s bodily functions.” (OK, the last one was mine.)

We also have plenty of the polar opposite: friends who are either single or married but have no desire to have children, at least not anytime soon. Our Drinking Buddies. These are the kinds of friends who ask us what we’re doing AFTER the bars close. As in, 2:00am. What our plans are. And snicker at how we’ve “changed” when I gently remind them that children don’t understand they need to sleep in on Saturdays when Mommy has a real bad red wine hangover. These are the friends who suggested we take Ryan, as in our eight-month old Demon Child, to a movie starting at 9pm on a Friday night. Want to know which movie? “No Country For Old Men.” Although Ryan is a huge fan of Cormack McCarthy’s books, “The Road” being his favorite, I think the other moviegoers would’ve chased me out with torches.

So, we can’t win. We are proud that we are able to make it out to a bar and people either snicker when we leave at midnight or they clutch their own children tightly, roll their eyes and whisper about how we’re trying to reclaim our youth. And I’m fine with that. It’s a balancing act and I’m thrilled I’ve been able to stay on the tightrope so far.

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When we got married I don’t remember any discussion about a pre-nup. Maybe Australian lawyers were yet to discover that such a thing existed. We may have had some system where the bride and groom agreed beforehand on who would get to keep the family heirloom convict ball and chain but other than that we just said “I do” and got on with things, albeit with our fingers crossed. So you might think I’m joking when I say there’s a clause in our pre-nup that says if any of our kids inherit my husband’s athletic prowess then he’s the one who gets to drive them to early morning training.

My husband was a slightly hyper-active five year old and during the summer of 1977 his mother decided to enroll him in swimming lessons in an effort to get him to burn off some of that energy. There was a coach on the pool deck who noticed PJ had a good strong kick and suggested to his mother that he might have some natural talent. By the time he was eight years old he was competing in local races. I met him at high school in year eight (junior year) but already knew him as that guy who won all the events at the school swimming carnival by half a length. Of the pool. I’m not just bragging, he was really good. At the pinnacle of his career he was ranked in the top ten in our country for three different events, was all set to compete in the Olympic Trials, and was considering an offer of a swimming scholarship to a college in North America. OK I’m bragging, but it’s all true. The story doesn’t have a happy ending, unfortunately. He developed tendonitis in his shoulder and at the age of 18 he had to give it all away. If only…

His father was a champion sprinter in his heyday in England, his mother an accomplished horse-rider, so there’s something in the genes on his side of the family that make them good at sports. We have been watching both our daughters closely to see if they’re going to be champion sprinters or Olympic swimmers but up until a couple of years ago neither seemed all that excited about either. Which is fine, of course. I was a very content but fairly ordinary netball player and cross-country runner when I was at school. I was a mediocre saxophonist and a lousy bagpiper. But that’s another story.

At the end of Ella’s first year of school we started to notice that she had quite extraordinary muscle definition for a child of six. Her arms looked like they had been sculpted and her back muscles positively rippled as she struggled with getting her school uniform on over her head in the morning. We couldn’t figure out how she had developed such a physique until one day I watched her on the jungle-gym in the playground at school. She was swinging from one end of the frame to the other, pausing every so often in a chin-up to let the other kids past. Then she would jump off and run across to the fireman’s pole and scale it in half a second flat. And suddenly I realised - this kid is actually a monkey. You know how some parents will say “Jimmy, go get your violin and play a little Chopin for the nice visitors”? Well, we’d say “Hey, Ella, show everyone your biceps!” and she would roll up her sleeves and do an Arnold Schwarzenegger.

One year later and we signed both the kids up for the local swim club, a very informal Friday night/Sunday morning commitment that included one session of training and one session of just-for-fun racing. The junior kids’ coach greeted Ella with a hearty “Well hello there, Muscles!” and that’s when I knew she definitely was a bit of a freak. She leapt into the water and proceeded to splash around and to her best impression of a Japanese tourist caught in a rip at Bondi Beach. It was enthusiastic, but it wasn’t pretty. She might have had the physique but she lacked the coordination.

This summer we enrolled the girls again at swim club. Madeleine took to it with characteristic determination and has developed a lovely freestyle technique. She can certainly swim further than me. Ella reluctantly joined the little kids’ group. If you asked her she’d probably tell you that the only reason she’s doing swimming at all is because the parents cook pancakes for the kids after the Sunday morning lesson. But this year something seems to have switched on in her head. A couple of Sundays ago I took a break from flipping pancakes to watch her in the pool.

The kid has a hell of a kick. She absolutely powers through the water, and I have to walk at a reasonable pace as I follow her alongside on the pool deck. I’m not just bragging. OK, yes I am. But there’s no denying that Ella is the one who has inherited the necessary genetic makeup to possibly excel at swimming and so PJ and I have been discussing the logistics of getting her to training at 5am, six mornings a week.

PJ’s mother took him to training every morning for ten years. She got up, drove him to the pool, came home and went back to sleep for a while, then went back to the pool to pick him up, then came home and got herself ready for work. Can you imagine? It was dark when they left, and during winter at least it was still dark when they got back. It’s quite a commitment, being the parent of an elite athlete. Getting the kids to school every morning is hard enough without factoring in training sessions that start well before the crack of dawn. Add to this the fact that we are about to realise our dream of moving out of the city and onto a rural acreage - forty minutes from the nearest swimming club - and we’re wondering if we, let alone she, has what it takes to be a serious swimmer.

She is only seven years old. I’m getting ahead of myself. She might not want to do it. She might be happy just swingin’ from the jungle gym. But what if she discovers a natural talent for something like this, something that requires a lot of hard work? I’m all for encouraging my kids to try their hand at anything. At the moment they do karate and horse-riding, and swimming will give way to winter sports (netball for Madeleine, soccer for Ella) and I’ll keep driving them to their classes as long as they’re happy to go (which they are, in case you were wondering that I might be one of those scary Stage Mother types). But if Ella takes to swimming the way her Dad did, or Madeleine develops on obsession for dressage and show-jumping like her grandmother, do I have the energy and time and commitment to keep up?

I hope so. I think so. Yeah, of course I do. I might need to start getting into training myself though. And by ‘training’ I mean setting the alarm for 4am and practicing operating my espresso machine whilst my eyes are still firmly shut.

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To: Readers of the Imperfect Parent blog

From: Maureen

Re: Exorcism

Dear All:

Can anyone recommend a good exorcist? I, myself, have no connections to those who can communicate with the demonic world, but maybe one of you does.

Please. It’s urgent. The power of Christ compels you.

Looks innocuous, right?

Keychain says: “I will destroy you.”

The dark spiritual activity started a few months ago.  Ryan likes to play with a toy keychain which makes car and siren noises. The fact that the car sounds like a dying baby seal and the siren a clown horn is irrelevant.

It was annoying enough when my son decided to press the clown horn every fifteen minutes during a five-hour car ride to visit my in-laws.  Now the keychain simply goes off by itself.  Usually around 3:30am or when I’m in a room alone.

I’ll be reading my new US Weekly, laughing at photos of Lindsay Lohan and her “water bottle,” happy for a few quiet moments after my son is asleep and my husband is taking out the dog, when I hear what sounds like Bozo the clown playing the trumpet.

I’ve logically checked to see if the toy has batteries I could remove. It does not. It seems to be powered via an internal motor or something. Or maybe it runs on lead paint. Or maybe it is fueled by the hatred of damned souls.

I immediately suspected the “TV people,” and avoided all television static. It didn’t work.

So, either the toy itself is posessed, in which case we should give it to our neighbor who left dog crap on our front door, or our house has a ghost who likes to drive us nuts. Either theory is fine, but I’m hoping we have a ghost since I’d like to train it to do helpful tasks like fetch me beer, find the remote, clean up my son’s diaper explosions and hand me bon-bons while I’m watchin’ my stories. Or maybe I could teach Captain Howdy to be entertaining, like Beetlejuice, and it could amuse our drunk friends at parties by forcing them to dance to calypso music.

If it is posessed, I know I can’t just throw it away or hack it into tiny little pieces without it re-appearing on my bed five minutes later.

So what’s a parent to do?

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Gestalt is a learning theory. It says that we learn things in wholes, not parts and pieces. That we experience the “aha” moment when the entirety of a concept is absorbed and understood by the brain all at once. I had one of those Gestalt “aha” moments very recently and it erupted into another and another, like pop rocks in my head, leaving me in the end with the certainty that my future son-in-law will be a bald man with a bright blue arrow tattooed on his head and a pet bison.

There are things about our present selves that we can trace back to our childhoods. I’m not fond of spiders because of a traumatic encounter with one when I was little. The smell of root beer makes me gag ever since my older sister smashed a tube of Bonnie Bell root beer scented lip gloss into my mouth and I swallowed and was sick for three days. Obvious situations where cause and effect are easy to see. But, there are other things that we believe are just pieces of ourselves that we were either born with or that we formed consciously through our lives out of intelligent choices we’ve made along the way. The mate we selected to spend our lives with might be an example of that second option. Or our career path might be another.

I’ve been married for 16 years to a man who looks a lot like every man I’ve ever had a crush on. I am a woman with a particular type. Examples of that type would be: Matt Dillon, Robert Downey Jr., Ben Affleck, Tom Cruise, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and the list goes on and on—basically baby-faced, dark haired, dark eyed guys with crooked smiles. The one man I’ve had a crush on who didn’t fit that mold is blond, Scottish Ewan McGregor. I’ve always been rather proud of that because it shows I’m not completely predictable. Then I started watching interviews with Ewan McGregor and realized that while he looks nothing like my husband, they share the same soul. Particularly along the lines of the motorcycle racing, car enthusiast, and of course Star Wars stuff. When I heard Mr. McGregor state that his favorite sports movie was that horrible Le Mans monstrosity with Steve bore-me-to-death McQueen, I knew that I was truly hopeless. If the man doesn’t LOOK like my husband, then he just is my husband on the inside. My crushes all lead back to the man I spend my life with, day in, day out. I guess it’s kind of comforting, it means I really did marry the right person.

But, then we saw the trailer for the new Speed Racer Movie, and my husband brought home a DVD of the old cartoon that he and I used to watch as kids, in our separate houses, cities … states apart from each other. Never knowing of the other’s existence while we sat on our own seventies-décor couches, warbling along with the jaunty theme song, separated from each other by space and time. I was excited for the opportunity to share this cult gem with our own kids, but as I watched that first episode unfold, my body tremored with the shock of the gestalt moment hitting it full force. I married Speed Racer. I wed this man at the ripe age of twenty-two not because of any divine intervention causing our paths to cross at that particular time in our lives. Not because we were meant for each other in some deep bio-metaphysical way. But, because that’s just how long it took me to sort through all the other men in my path and come across a real life Speed to take home and call my own. The similar physical features, the exaggerated expressions of surprise, the penchant for hurried over-explanation, and the way he seems to stand perfectly still for just a little too long. Finally, there’s that common passion for racing, but for my husband, it’s on the Xbox in our livingroom with that Forza game, not for real. I’m not Trixie, I don’t have my own helicopter to fly around and save his ass if he crashes. It was all too eerie. This also explains my chimp aversion, but that’s a whole other issue. Speed was my first crush and apparently my last as well. My destiny was set, in my own house around 3:30 some random weekday afternoon, likely with a glass of milk in my hand, when everything in my body decided that I would settle for nothing less than the cartoon man I saw on the screen. Isn’t that romantic?

Well, it could be but, does this happen to everyone? What about my kids? I let my mind wander briefly, wondering how their television viewing patters might influence their future preferences in a mate, since as far as I know, this has never been studied. BAM That damn gestalt again. My 9 year-old has a crush on the kid from Avatar for as long as I can remember. My 13 year-old’s first love was Velma from Scooby Doo. My toddler’s current love IS Scooby Doo, but, if that’s too disturbing then we can go back a year to when she was all about the Teletubbies. Oh, my God! The airbender, I suppose I could tolerate. The Avatar guy is kind of cute with that new-age Asian thing going. He’d be fine to have around. The prissy know-it-all redhead would be a pain in the ass for a daughter-in law, but I guess if she gets too uppity I can always hide her glasses and laugh while she crawls around on the floor looking for them. Truth be told, a boy could do worse for himself. But, I absolutely need to start choosing cartoons for the little one more carefully or we could have a Thanksgiving dinner twenty years down the road with an obese gay blue man wearing a tutu carving our turkey for us. That would on the whole, most gestalty suck.

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I am not a Super-Mommy. I’m not ashamed of it, either. I don’t want to be a Super-Mommy. Heck, I don’t even like Super-Mommies. I’d say I’m an Imperfect Parent, however, that might be implied since I’m writing here. But, I venture further, I dare to say I’m NOT an Imperfect Parent. Ha! There, I said it! You might ask, if I’m not an Imperfect Parent then does that make me a Perfect Parent? Thanks for asking, and yes, it does. Now, hold on a second before running off to call the Slap-The-Bitch hotline on me, let me explain myself. I’m not perfect, but I am a Perfect Parent, and my unique and individual imperfections are what make me so. Not getting it? I’ll try to clarify and maybe in a bit, you’ll boldly declare that you too, are in fact, a Perfect Parent–not despite–but because of your imperfections.

Let’s get the nonsense out of the way at the start. I don’t beat my kids, I don’t neglect them. I don’t lock them in a closet and feed them dog food on paper plates slid under the doors. None of those things are “imperfections” anyway. They’re criminal behaviors. Punishable sins against our dependents. So, now we’ve cleared that up, we don’t need to go down that route again. Imperfect does not go anywhere near abuse. Mmm’K?

Now, on to the so-called imperfections. Helicopter parenting is so popular around here, it’s hard for a mom to keep herself on the ground and not feel like a loser. Kids in my neck of the woods are like conjoined twins—one grubby little kid attached to a full grown woman, who does most of the work associated with being alive. Somehow, this has become our local ideal of what a mother should be. Her success as a parent is defined by how much she does FOR her kid. That’s not me. I’m there to help if my kids need me. I drive, I schedule, I pay. But, I’m not going to DO it. I check homework, I don’t walk though it problem by problem. My kids carry their own book bags and put their own coats, boots and gloves on. The Super-Mommies tut-tut me from underneath the mountain of their children’s belongings while I stand sipping a latte, but I don’t feel bad about it. See, in my world, doing everything for your kids teaches them nothing. They need to fail sometimes to learn how to succeed. The goal is to get your kids able to fend for themselves and move out to live functional lives away from you and provide you with grandchildren to coddle, not to make your kids dependent on you for everything for as long as you live. No grandchildren option in that second scenario.

It has also somehow come to pass that we all are supposed to have the patience and tolerance of the Mother Mary on valium. No yelling, no throwing tantrums or irrational reactions to whatever the little monsters or er, little darlings do. We’re all supposed to admonish bad behavior with carefully rehearsed child-psych approved vocabulary in a gentle sing-songy voice so as to not dent their delicate self-esteem. That’s not me either. I think that’s actually bad. See, I do throw fits when I’ve been pushed over the edge. I’ve been known to over-react when I’m pissed. I’m not ashamed of that either. I’m human. To the best of my knowledge, the world my children live in is inhabited by humans. I don’t see how being some saintly automaton would help them learn to navigate the nuances of human personalities, or how to smooth over an angry person when you’ve done wrong. I think it’s good for them to know that their mother is a human (that in itself is kind of important on so many levels) and secondly that humans react in a variety of ways when they’re shoved over their particular line in the sand. Could be mom yelling, could be a crazy fuck with an automatic weapon. Bottom line is, when people say STOP, they mean it. When my kids are adults and they screw up at work, their boss isn’t going to consult the guru du jour for sympathetic phrasing before letting loose on them. If the kid hasn’t experienced making anyone truly mad and suffering some uncomfortable consequence, how will he not crumple into a fit of tears when he’s yelled at by someone else? Part of building self-esteem is giving kids confidence to handle situations. You’re doing no favors if you don’t teach them how to deal with real people and turn yourself into some Stepford mannequin instead.

I’m not Mommy The Entertainer during all waking hours. I have things I need to do in order for the house to run efficiently. I have chores that need doing during the daytime. Heaven forbid, I know, that my children be forced to run errands with me when they’d rather be doing something else. It’s unthinkable that little kids might have to endure a tiny bit of monotony for the benefit of the rest of the family. I mean, Lord knows I just live for grocery shopping and doing laundry. It’s what I hoped I’d get to do all the time when I grew up. Bad me for not putting them in an environment where they can just play in a ball pit or watch TV while I do the grunt work. No, I drag them along. They learn compromise and negotiation though. You behave at the store and we’ll play a game afterwards. Works for everyone. I also expect that my kids will learn to work through boredom. I do play with them, but most definitely not all day long. They can, and do play by themselves, which is unheard of by my peers.

And finally, I’ve waged war on all things that call themselves educational. It’s the custom here to start at birth in preparing your kid for Yale. I guess before birth, really since there are those headphones you can put on your belly that are supposed to teach foreign languages and classical music. I don’t do flash cards with my toddler. No video games to sneak in learning the alphabet or pre-calculus. I like my kids to play with the cheap dumb toys, like blocks and dolls when they’re little. I guess it’s a wonder they ever learned to talk or write their names, since I held them back so badly, insisting they be children for a while. It drives the Super-Mommies nuts when you do this, try it, really. Super-Mommy slides over to you at the library (with her arms full of coats and snacks) and starts the small talk. You discover your daughters are about the same age (say around two and a half), and she asks if your daughter knows her letters, because, well, they’ve tried everything but her kid still gets half of them wrong and she’s thinking of hiring a tutor, or that Kumon program, do you know anything about that Kumon program? You look at her, and say, “Huh. I don’t know if she knows her letters or not! Hey, Liz, what’s that letter? Yeah, that red thing you’re using as a hammer, it’s a magnetic letter, honey, do you know which letter it is?” And your child responds correctly because she’s somehow learned letters through osmosis. Then you say, “Hmm, I guess she does know them.” Shrug and walk away.

No, I’m not perfect. I’m a human in charge of raising up smaller humans. My imperfections make me the perfect candidate for that job. My children come first and I lead my life in a way that I believe will make them well prepared for life without me. I aim to balance building up their confidence while giving them tastes of reality, to further build up their confidence. I’m not racing for some medal. There is no Best Super Mommy prize at the end. My reward will be when my children are self-sufficient adults, happy, productive and living in a clean house I can visit. So, if you’re like me, then shed that guilt. Embrace those imperfections and hang up that phone, I’m not the bitch you want slapped. I’m just a Perfect Parent, and you probably are too.

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A study from the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine purports that kids as young as three years old have their perception of taste “physically altered by…branding,” specifically McDonald’s:

Anything made by McDonald’s tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can trick the taste buds of young children.

Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids if it was wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.

The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald’s foods in name-brand or unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.

The kids that participated in the study were 63 three to five year olds from low-income families that attend Head Start centers in San Mateo, California. The study author, Dr. Tom Robinson, “believes” the outcome would be the same no matter what the income level of the family.

Sure to spark another shit storm of lawsuits and cries for advertising bans, one person offers a dissenting view:

Pradeep Chintagunta, a University of Chicago marketing professor, said a fairer comparison might have gauged kids’ preferences for the McDonald’s label versus another familiar brand, such as Mickey Mouse.

“I don’t think you can necessarily hold this against” McDonald’s, he said, since the goal of marketing is to build familiarity and sell products.

He noted that parents play a strong role in controlling food choices for children so young.

All I know is I’m heading down to our local Mickey D’s to see if they’ll sell me a box full of wrappers — it finally might be the way I get my kids to eat my tofu and veggie lasagna.

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Back when I was a kid anyone could be a substitute teacher. I’m sure the schools themselves would have preferred someone with a teaching degree or, at the very least, a formal education of some kind. However, it was a measure of just how little the profession was respected that not everyone who came into contact with kids in a learning-type of way–aside from the custodian, secretary and the cafeteria ladies–was qualified to do so.

My own 6th grade class suffered under the tyrannical rule of an occasional substitute I’ll call Constance. She was the mother of a fellow classmate/friend and though we endured her massive and unpredictable mood swings until the real teacher could come back, I know her daughter labored mightily under the desire for a giant trap door to open up just under her mother’s feet as she stood at the desk demanding quiet.

Standards were finally raised in our state to require library aides and teacher’s aides to have an Associates’ Degree and the teachers themselves were required do everything from taking competency tests to submitting gradebooks/lesson plans and objectives with plans for modifications for inspection and approval. We were observed and evaluated and counseled as to how best to meet the needs of low-performing kids who came from clueless families. Poverty. Violence. Layered generations with little interest in the educational system or concern about helping their child achieve more than family tradition would seem to dictate. Ahh yes! What method should we employ with children to counteract the 18 hours of daily exposure to neglect and ignorance with the paltry six hours per day kids spent in school?

Regardless of the flaming hoops teachers have had to jump through to receive their crappy paychecks every month and the lipservice and shallow promises that politicians routinely trot out on the campaign trail, educators are still the lowest paid degreed professionals on Planet Earth. Every year at orientation, teachers are sent out into the field like warriors with pep talks of their participation in “the noble profession” still ringing in their ears. “Noble” meaning: She/He who works for insufficient funds.

One of the problems is that people still approach teaching with a the idea that it’s just a job for women. A bunch of silly women who don’t really need to make a decent salary since that’s the “job of the husband” (Not my words. No death threats, please) And those without husbands–like me in 1982? We struggled along on the $13,000 per year (before taxes, Social Security and NEA dues). Can you say Poverty Level? We had to get jobs during the summer that usually went to teenagers or other young adults who hadn’t gone to college–just to pad the bank accounts. We were paid on the last Friday of every month, except in December when we were paid right before the holidays. One year it was December 18th. I didn’t get paid again until the last Friday of January. Try THAT one on for size.

I’m willing to admit that things are better than they used to be. Cost of living raises are grudgingly given. Politicians eventually have to make good on promises to increase pay, but the conditions under which teachers work are worse than ever. Plus buying a house and raising a family on a low salary is still incredibly difficult. If–as they claim– it’s one of the most important professional jobs in the world, then why aren’t we paying these people in accordance with that philosophy? I’m waiting for an answer.

Most of the teachers I know deserve to be paid well. No one should raise an eyebrow at their requests to be able to feed, clothe, shelter and educate their own children. But among those throngs of worthy professionals are the interlopers. The people–and here it’s mostly women–who become teachers because it was something “to fall back on”. Something to do to bring in a little extra money. A job to pursue because you can get off at 3:30 and–if you have a husband– summer is time off for a job well done…or even if you did it badly.

These are the people who anger me: the faux educators who get a last-minute teaching certificate so that they can HAVE A JOB. Everyone thinks teaching is something they can do. “Hey, I went to school…I can probably teach it.” That makes about as much sense as my saying that since I brush my teeth every day, I can probably be a dentist.

The interlopers infuriate me almost as much as the politicians and spineless administrators who expect perfection from their employees and give little in return but a damp handshake and a vague promise of more money down the road. These “posers” who take up the teaching profession for any reason except for the only one that counts: They really feel called to work with children. Unless that’s your reason, your services are not needed in my kid’s classroom. You want a little extra money? Go get a job working the cosmetics counter at Macy’s. You want something to fall back on? Wait tables or be a cashier in a bookstore. But don’t ask me to pretend you can help my kid find Taipei on a map. It just degrades us both.

Last year I was at the grocery checkout and I saw a man who turned out to be my middle son’s former school football coach. A classroom teacher and a fantastic coach. A father and grandfather who was now retired from the profession. He was sacking my groceries. I rest my case.

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