Once again, like a giant doody bird, I have overscheduled myself for today. I think my past self thinks my future self is faster, more capable, and less likely to scratch delicate surfaces. It’s just not true, past self. But I turn around to punch her, and she’s gone. So I am stealing a couple of minutes to complain.

Holy Fucking Shit y’all, I went to a “parent education” night at my daughter’s school on Thursday. My confession is that this is her fourth year there and this was my first one. D’oh! Things are easier now that my baby sleeps at night and we live two-minutes’ walk from the school.

It turns out I wasn’t missing anything before! The actual parent education part took about ten minutes (and was very interesting), and the rest was “Harangue the Elementary Teacher” night.

It started off normally. The teacher began her discussion of classroom procedures, and the subject came to lunch. She practices the extremely controversial lunch method of “letting the children decide when they are hungry, within a reasonable window of time.” OOOOOH. This is part of the reason I have Franny in private school, because of the flexibility that’s possible there. And because the school is so gung-ho on personal responsibility and making choices and all that stuff you never get to do when you’re the product of a Future-Derelict Factory like I was.

The teacher was promptly attacked for her crazy notions. We heard extensively (and almost exclusively) from one child’s mother, who shall be pseudonymously named “Emily’s mommy,” since she seemed to have no name of her own.

“WELL,” Emily’s mommy started in. “Emily has been having problems with this lunch method. Emily wants to do what her friends are doing, so she brings her food outside. But she has a warm-up, so she can’t eat it all!” Emily’s mommy was making reference to the fact that the teacher also provides a microwave, so the children can bring actual meal-like leftovers, instead of a sandwich every day, and the fact that the children can choose to eat outside during recess. “Children should be playing outside during recess, not eating! It defeats the purpose of recess, doesn’t it?” I could see that her eyes were casting around the room for votes, support, anything.

She went on, undeterred by the lack of support, like a political candidate whose position statement is a breakdown of the moon-landing hoax. “FURTHERMORE, Emily has low blood sugar issues. At our house, we eat every hour. WE ARE GRAZERS!” There were some calmer parents there, like Whippet and her husband, and Wonder Woman and her husband. We were reduced to making the “MY GOD, KILL ME” bug eyes at each other, since there was barely room for anyone else to speak.

It continued on like this on every topic. I could have been at home putting Franny to bed, and reading Half-Magic to her, but alas, now I know more about Emily than I do my own child.

On the walk home, Whippet and her husband were cutting up about the whole thing. “I feel like I know how often Emily’s mommy has sex!” Whippet’s husband snapped. “Not enough, I’m guessing.”

“Poor Emily,” I said. “Poor Emily’s therapy bills.”

I wondered to them why people have their children in a program they obviously don’t trust at all. There was another man who went after the teacher about silent reading. “HOW DO YOU KNOW they’re reading silently?” he demanded.

“I don’t,” the teacher replied. She explained that she moves around the classroom during silent reading to see if any children are struggling, and that’s it’s about practicing reading techniques, as well as learning to read silently.

“But HOW do you KNOW?” he kept asking.

I don’t know. My kid seems happy, I like what she’s doing, and I feel relieved that she’s in a stable environment. But you don’t know for sure. The other choice is quitting your job and homeschooling, isn’t it? And faced with that, I think I’d be nibbling on the wallpaper within a week. So I am choosing to trust the system.