Those Who Can.... Do

You may have noticed in an earlier blog post that I mentioned I have to 'vacuum' up the bad dreams from Noah's bed as part of his bedtime ritual.

Tonight, I asked if I needed to vacuum up the bad dreams, and he responded, quite matter-of-factly, "No. The bad dreams are in their cages, playing with the dinosaurs."

And that's that.


So, I have signed up to be a tutor for the local Boys & Girls Club. It's basically an hour and a half per week at a local BGC facility. I'll find out more next week at my orientation / training session.

I told Ben a couple weeks ago that I wanted to do this, and he incredulously responded something along the lines of, "Are you flipping crazy?!" Actually, I think his exact words were more about how the three kids and new puppy and regular job might be enough of a load already, why add more? Maybe consider doing this a little later when things "settle down more". But, I've gone through enough of this to figure out that when certain things 'settle down', other things get more out of control. Once all the kids are in school, they'll start doing extra-curricular activities, having more serious homework assignments/book reports, etc. I don't think it will truly ever 'settle down' until the kids are all packed up and moved out of the house, and I don't really intend to wait 16 and a half years to start contributing to society. So, we discussed, and although Ben was skeptical at first, he is supportive of the idea.

Not that I don't get Ben's point. And not that I can't contribute to society by merely raising three happy, healthy, self-sufficient and caring members of said society. But I've got an urge to do more.

And not just anything. This tutoring thing has some significance to me. See, I had a hard time making the decision not to send Travis through public schooling. I'm a big proponent of the public school system, yet here I am sending my kid to a private school. That was a huge decision for me, and up until I actually had a kid, and had to start thinking about where I would send him to school, was not one I thought I would struggle with as much.

Public schools in this area are rough, one of the worst in the state. The intellectual part of me tells me, over and over again, that as a caring, attentive, aware parent, my kid doesn't have to fall into that trap just by attending a public school. Certainly, public schools (even rough ones) don't doom one to failure. But when actually faced with that decision, knowing how severely it could affect my child's life, it was way more difficult to knowingly place him in that situation -- especially when provided an attractive alternative in the way of tuition-discounted private education due to my husband's employment with the private school system.

I'm well aware that private schools aren't fairy-tale perfect. But the biggest factor in my decision was just the knowledge that, oftentimes, teachers in rough school settings just cannot focus enough of their time on actual 'teaching' since they spend so much time on discipline issues. Travis is so smart, I just couldn't bear thinking of him in a setting where he couldn't develop.

So, we went the private school route, and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, will do the same for installments two and three of the Davidson clan.

Now.... that said, the hardest part of that decision for me was knowing that I was removing a possible good influence from the public school setting. I know the public school epidemic is all about parents like me, removing their students from the system, so many of the students that are left are those that don't have such attentive parents, or as stable a home, etc. (Not to be political here.... certainly socio-economic status is not the sole driver for a parent's ability to be involved in their child's schooling, but you can't deny that there is a link. Even if it is just that the parents '
lower tax brackets means they work extra and, even with no lack of desire, just don't have the ability to be as involved.) At any rate, here I am, dealing with the possibility that Travis could have been the kid that befriended some lonely latchkey kid that otherwise might have turned to drugs or some other trouble. And now Travis will not be there. And what happens to that kid?

So.... my solution f0r robbing the public schools of the presence of my kids is to replace that influence. Maybe not quite the same, but its the best I can do at this point.

Oh. And one more thing. As Ben and I were discussing my taking this on, and the impact it would have on our lives, I said something like, "Well, you do bowling on Tuesday nights, what's the difference?" And he says, "What's the difference? My bowling is a purely selfish activity!"

Umm...Touche. I guess.