Can Women Have It "All"?

To begin this post, I will answer that question.

NO. No, we cannot.

The internet lately has been full of articles about the 2012 woman - she works, she parents, she plays, she volunteers. She seems to have it "all." But does she really, and can she? Is it even possible?

Well - yes. And no. She can have a little bit of it "all." But she can't have all of it "all". This is why:

I am a mom. For most of the last eight years, that has been my main job. The Mom job description involves a lot of things - cleaning, laundry, holiday preparation, birthday parties - you name it. Today's Mom is expected to be mega-involved in her child's school. So in addition to the normal Mom duties, she volunteers at school too. Homeroom mom, School Advisory Council, PTA. She helps out with auction baskets and Fun Fridays and banquets.

Now, eventually Mom wants to expand her horizons a bit. So she begins to volunteer outside of the school. Girl Scouts. The Junior League. She chairs committees, and attends trainings and generally tries to help others while gaining some experience.

Experience. Because eventually, as the kids get older, people start to ask "When are you going back to work?" Which is funny, really, because the Mom job is already plenty of work. Full-time work.

But the kids are in school, and people are expecting you to move away from your bon-bon eating, leisurely pedicure-getting lifestyle, and get a "real job."

Mom starts out part-time - as a school aide, and a substitute teacher. But the pay is awful, and it's not really worth taking the time away from the other Mom duties.

So Mom starts working more or less full-time, doing something exciting and interesting. But the rest of the Mom stuff starts to suffer. Less time with the kids. Less time volunteering. Things start to stack up. The dishes and laundry and school projects don't go anywhere - there's just less time to get it all done. So Mom spends her "free time" doing all the Mom stuff she did before. After dinner, late into the evening.

By the time Mom gets to bed, she's wiped out. There's little time for husband. There's little time for friends. Things start to slip.

Mom forgets to make that doctor's appointment she needs to make. Oh crap - was that birthday last week? How long has it been since the oil was changed? The little stuff stacks and stacks and stacks, until the whole things weighs on her shoulders.

The point here is - that the more you do, the thinner you're spread. Things suffer, if not in one area of your life, in another. Choices have to be made, and sacrifices too.

So you can have the family, and the job, and the friends, and the home. But the family gets tired of you being tired all the time. The job sometimes suffers, because you can't give it your undivided attention. You might go months without seeing your friends, and years without a weekend away with your spouse. The house is a mess pretty much all the time, and the to-do list just keeps growing.

It really sucks that we CAN'T really have it all. But is sucks even more that society expects us to anyway.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, it's a TRAVEL AGENT!

Since my life wasn't crazy enough...Bart and I embarked on a journey to find the perfect franchise to buy. I had (have) been looking for a job that didn't interfere with the family too much for about a year. Everything I found either a) had crappy hours; b) was 30+ miles away; c) paid only a smidge above minimum wage; or d) all of the above. In the meantime, Bart was interested in buying a "bidness" that we could own, and maybe get some tax benefits from. After a brief look into a toy store franchise (VERY brief), I stumbled into the travel concept. I already love to travel, and I usually talk people into going with me. So why not do it for a living? Bart and I researched and reviewed and researched and attended webinars and conference calls and more webinars, and eventually decided to take the BIG LEAP into a Travel franchise. As of May 4th, 2012, we are the co-owners of Cruise Planners - American Express, with me at the Primary operator. Now this is exciting and terrifying for a lot of reasons. The main one is we had to put some money into it, with no real hopes of seeing any return for at least 6-12 months. The other is...well - that's mostly it. One big chunk-o-cash rolled out on the craps table, hoping I can make it work. I'm pretty sure I can do it. I have a long road in front of me, and I've already taken one brief dip with the sharks, but I came out of it at least knowing who and where the sharks are. There are 2 things I have learned already: 1) Travel Agents actually CAN get things cheaper. Really. And 2)The amount of travel stuff out there is flat out crazy overwhelming. So we're giving it a go. Wish us luck. Oh - and as a quick update - we decided to spend our daughter to Private School this Fall. If you need me, leave a message - I'll be giving Bart oxygen.

Up With School Vouchers

Although I follow politics a little, I never really understood all the hoopla about School Vouchers. I never got it....until today.

For the uninitiated, a "School Voucher" works like this. Basically, each public school gets X amount of tax dollars for every student who attends. (Let's just say $7,000 per student.) In theory, this is what "pays" for that student's education. That money comes from our (and your) tax dollars. In the event you decide you DON'T think the Public School System is doing a good job, or if your child needs more than what the Public School System can provide, you have the option to forgo Public School and pay to put your child in a private school instead. In the spirit of competition, School Vouchers allow parents to choose the educational environment that's best for their children, be it Public or Private. If you decided Public School wasn't cutting it, you could take your Public School Tax Dollars (the $7,000) that goes with your kids, and you could apply that money towards Private School Tuition.

That's the quick and dirty explanation. It allows parents more choice in where and how their child goes to school.

So let's say your county's Public School system is starting to max out it's potential for your Gifted child. He/She is making straight A's, but he/she isn't stimulated or interested in school at all. The State's curriculum doesn't allow for much out-of-the-box teaching, and the same-old-same-old is numbing the spirit of your intellectual child.

You start to look for other options. Most counties have "Magnet" Schools. These are schools that are Public Schools, but that have a curriculum that strays from the norm, and sometimes focuses on a specific area. For instance, one school may have a Fine Arts/Performing Arts focus. Another may be Technology based. There are also International Baccalaureate programs that focus on a more "world view" curriculum.

Most of these "Magnet" schools are in less-than-desirable parts of town. The idea is to pull better students and families into those areas (which almost never works, by the way.)

By chance, the district decides to install an IB Magnet program at a school near to you. You go to 2 open houses. You ask questions. You make your child ask questions. You apply. You get EXCITED when you see your going-through-the-motions child get EXCITED about the program. The teachers there TEACH differently. Their approach to the curriculum is DIFFERENT and CREATIVE.

Then you find out there are no requirements to get into the school. They don't check test scores or IQ levels. They don't require entrance essays or interviews. I don't think they even check behavior records. It is supposedly a "random lottery."

So you figure your child has an even chance of admission, right? WRONG. Because the thing they don't tell you is that they give preference to School District employees. Your County has the largest School District in the state. It has the most schools, the most students, and the most employees. So it seems a little unfair when you find out that every single spot was given to either a) a School District employee's child (not an employee at that school - just an employee with the district), or b) the sibling of a current student.

So that leaves you where? Your zoned School is a good school. The test scores are good. It's nearby. There's really nothing on paper that makes it bad.

Except that they teach the same way all the other Public Schools teach. So what if your child needs something different? Something more? Where do you go?

Private school, that's where. Private school that is expensive. We're comfortable financially, and it would still be a major adjustment for our family to take on Private School tuition.

It would be nice if I could say "Yo - Public School System. This school has the environment my child needs, but you don't have room. So I'm going to take my tax dollars over here so she can get what she needs."

Voila! You have Student Vouchers.

Unfortunately, the teacher's unions, and the politicians, and the administrators don't want vouchers, because allowing parents that freedom of choice would be paramount to admitting that the current system isn't working well.

Right now in our state, schools are over-crowded. teachers are over-worked and underpaid. Teachers are hog-tied by beuracracy, scores, and testing. Almost everything focuses around the Assessment tests: the curriculum, the amount of money a school gets, the amount of money a teacher is paid - everything. There's almost no arts, music, PE, or Social Studies anymore. It's all Reading, Writing, and Math.

If you were to see these "assessments", you would fall over. Could they really dumb stuff down anymore? The questions are ridiculously simple. They want to make the questions easier, so they can get the students to score better. TEACH THE TEST.

Well, my child is way past it. She needs more than what the regular curriculum can give her. She needs a smaller environment where she isn't lost in the 1500 students at a school that is 25% over capacity. She needs a creative, flexible curriculum - one that will allow her to soar.

And as a parent, it's my job to help her find that environment.

So I now support the School Vouchers program. It has nothing to do with whether my zones school is good or not. It has nothing to do with test scores or enrollment or demographics. It has to do with my specific child and what my specific child needs.

Wish us luck!