The WAL

When I’m working day shift, I get to drop my kids off at school during the week.  (Nights I get to pick them up, which is better.)  One morning early this week, I witnessed an incident of parking lot rage.  Really.

Father A had stopped his car to let his young son out and into the school.  Said son instead wanted Daddy to take him in, so the father turned off the car and got out, leaving his car perpendicular to the actual orientation of other parked cars.  Stupid, but people can still get by, so who really cares, right?  Well, Father B comes along and is offended by the misparked vehicle, parks his pick up in the normal orientation, lets his kids out, and waits for Father A to return.  I came out the front door of the school in time to witness the following exchange.

Father B:  Can’t park like a normal person, eh?
Father A:  My son wanted me to take him in instead of dropping him off, so I did.  Why do you have to be so rude?
Father B:  Why can’t you learn how to park your damn car?
Father A:  Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?  People can still get by.
Me:  What a wonderful example you’re both setting for all of our kids.

Okay, yes that was stupid.  I could have found myself in a fight with both of the morons.  Fortunately, they both just looked at me for a second, turned their engines on, and drove away.  Idiots.  Potential capital offenses for stupidty aside, so many people seem to have forgotten that kids learn by what they see parents do.  And we wonder why the world seems full of rude kids with no respect for anything.  A myth of over-representation, I think, but what else do you hear about?

That’s right.  Deep into the double digits, and nearly finished Chapter Three.  I’ve got most of the major plot points sketched out for the whole story and a solid idea of exactly where I’m going for the next couple of chapters.  It mostly sucks, but the point is to get the story out.  It can be polished into readability later.

There are two guys at work who have both become father to a second child recently.  Both have arranged several months of parental leave starting shortly and within a month of the child’s birth.  The other day at work, I overheard a conversation between the two converning how much fishing they’re going to get in.  One even commented that it will be nice to have someone to fish with.

Yesterday afternoon before work, I convinced my wife that we should eat dinner in front of the TV so my daughters could finish watching the Powerpuff Girls movie on one of the cartoon channels and I could be with them for something they enjoy (and it was kind of entertaining, if not in the same way as for the girls).  My preference is always to spend time with my kids, alone or in combinations.  Vacation or leave of any sort is family time and leisure activities are planned with family in mind.  (Yes, my wife and I do take some time to ourselves, but not much.  I have plenty of alone time when I’m on night shift and during my commute.  A little more when I’m running.)  And with a newborn, planning activities for myself wasn’t even on the radar.  Bugger off and leave my exhausted wife with the kids to go fishing?  Yeah, right.  She would have been justified in beating me.

It’s a strange contrast.  I wonder, am I the weird one?

On the way to work this morning, I heard a brief news report about a rumour regarding kindergarten in the Ottawa public school board. Apparently, someone has broached the idea of sending JK and SK students to school on two days per week and alternate Fridays instead of five mornings or five afternoons per week. The sound bite was some overwrought father whining about how no almost-four-year-old could possibly handle this kind of anti-routine.

Really. How strange.

In this age of incredibly tight budgets, most rural schools have long since adopted this “insane” form of kindergarten so as not to have to run buses twice per day for only a few students. One of my kids has survived two years of this moving on to higher grades, another is in SK and the third will start JK next September. I wish someone had told me ahead of time that they couldn’t handle it. And I’m sure that many thousands of parents of kids in rural or small town schools would have appreciated knowing it wasn’t possible before their kids had to endure it. And I’m sure glad someone told me now before all of my kids were forced into such torture. Boy, what were we all thinking?

Sarcasm aside, you might consider it a question of endurance versus stamina. The endurance to survive entire 6.5 hour days of school, or the stamina to go day after day five days per week. Either way, by the time they get to grade one, they’ve got to have both, so I guess that’s a moot argument.

As far as the Ottawa school board in particular goes, while there’s supposedly nothing official as yet, it will come, if only to save those few dollars in the rural schools that predominately bus students. Like any other board, money is tight.

And how exactly did this become news, anyway?  One wonders if there were no important things going on today.