Today’s source of unwarranted agitation: Should I, or should I NOT, volunteer a few hours a week to photocopy in the school office?
I have the available time: for the first time in years, I don’t have a child at home keeping me from “no siblings, please” volunteer work. But as I understand it, volunteering is a GIANT SUCKHOLE that pulls you in and makes you feel guilty for doing so little. It also puts me on the PTA’s radar, and past experience has shown me I’d like to avoid that. Also, photocopying for hours at a time sounds like it could be…dull.
On the other hand, it gets me into a system I would enjoy exploring (I love knowing Insider Stuff), and possibly gets my foot in the door for a job later on: it occurred to me after I fretted in another post that at this point in my life if I get a job it has to include SUMMERS OFF, and basically that’s School System.
Volunteering in the school CAN be a “giant suckhole” and definitely puts you on the PTA’s radar. You’ll need to practice saying “No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that .” (I know whereof I speak. I was on the PTA board for 2 years.)
On the other hand, I think it also puts you on the school’s radar in a good way. “Oh, you’re such-and-such’s mom….” leads to more benefit-of-the-doubt from teachers when the homework got lost or the supply you were supposed to send in didn’t make it. (Note, it’s not that I don’t think teachers care about all their students or that there’s some vast conspiracy going on. It’s that there is always limited time, energy and resources. My mother compares it to when she worked in a nursing home: If the aide has time to give one bath and 2 patients who need one, and patient A’s child visits regularly and patient B never has someone come see them, which patient do you think is getting the bath?) This can also mean that “difficult’ teacher conferences start from a place of mutual respect, rather than defensiveness.
I also found that my kids LOVED it that I was in the school building. (In elementary school, that is. The middle schooler vaguely waved at me from behind his back as he went into the lunchroom once…..
In my kids’ school, copying was pretty low pressure — we kept a set of hanging files in the copy room, teachers put their requests in the hanging file, copy volunteer came in and made copies from the files and then placed them in the teacher’s mail box, which is also located in the copy room. No talking to other people required. :)
Third note — I thought copying was fun because it meant I got to see what the kids were doing in all the different classes. (Our principal actually won’t let us copy anymore, for fear someone will end up copying a test their own child will take and….somehow that will help the child cheat? I’m not sure. She just stops after explaining she doesn’t want us possibly copying our own children’s tests. Our PTA has suggested that perhaps the teachers should be instructed not to put tests in our to-be-copied file and we could still copy all their worksheets and notes and newsletters and project instructions and such, but the principal isn’t going for it.)
I say go for it. At my daughter’s school volunteering 2 hours/ week is required and can get annoying but it is so nice to just know more about the school and people. And my kid at least loves it when I’m on campus. “sorry, I can’t” will get you out of PTA following up by “I have five kids” for the persistent folks ;)
Go into it with firm boundaries (in your own mind) about what you are willing to give with a happy heart. Avoid any path ending with “Swistle is our new PTO volunteer coordinator!” because that job will suck your newly freed soul dry.
In my experience, it totally IS a giant suckhole, and in this case you wouldn’t be able to just avoid further contact with the organization doing the sucking, if it got to be too much. Resentment ahoy!
That said, I’d still go for it if it’s worth the foot in the door. Good luck!
I think you should, but not yet. Seriously, take more time for yourself. You deserve it!
I vote for WAITING before you decide. Like, it would be okay to wait this entire school year before you decide what you’re going to do with your kid-free time on a regular basis. You can still pursue ad hoc stuff that catches your eye, but I’d recommend giving yourself some time to see what you like/don’t like/want to change/want to preserve about your new routine before you add anything regular to it.
People still spend time photocopying things? Really?
Being the copy parent was some of the most fun volunteering I’ve done, precisely because it is somewhat mind-numbing, and you can get a peek at what they are expecting of your kid. It also lets you have a firm foundation for seeing things you like and things you’d like changed.
And it DEFINITELY was a thing my son loved.
And it is a benefit to have the school administrators and teachers know you by name.
And I told the PTA up front, “I’m willing to be the copy parent, and I’m willing to do one activity night. I can’t do more than that.”
You know, I’m PTA president at our school this year, and I’d like it very much if people just said, “Sorry, I can’t.” But invariably, they say, “I’m sorry, I can’t — I have a church meeting twice a week and I have to feed everybody dinner beforehand, and little Suzie has her special crucifer-free diet to follow, which makes things so complicated! My middle child plays the tuba in the marching band, and the youngest has swim practice eight days a week, and I’m teaching underwater basket-weaving on alternate Thursdays.” I don’t want people to feel they have to justify anything to me — and what’s more, I don’t care!
I totally agree that this is something you can do LATER. Just exhale and enjoy your well-earned alone time for a while!
I’m also here to say that you can volunteer doing all kinds of things at school without ever getting sucked into the PTA. I am starting my eleventh (11th!) consecutive year as a parent at my kids’ elementary school (fewer kids than you, but more spread out), volunteering all along, and I don’t think I’ve ever been to a PTA meeting. The PTA certainly knows who I am, and I show up when parents are needed for various things, but I don’t go to the meetings.
I do love the insider peek at the inner workings of the school, and getting to know the staff. My kids so far have LOVED my being at school, too.
So, go for it, just take a little vacation first.
A few hours of copying sounds like a great chance for podcasts or audiobooks, if you enjoy that!
Copying to me seems to be a great, “I’m putting in some of my time, but I can float a bit OFF the radar here.” At least at our school, the copier is so off the main thoroughfare, that I think it would be easy to slip in, do the job, and then slip right back out. And it’s a parent-help job, NOT an official PTA job.
A few hours a week sounds like a lot. This is my first year with both kids in school and I joined the PTA, am chairing two committees, I volunteer one hour a week in the classroom, got a part time job, and WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING. My husband was like, “You could be reading BOOKS for 12 daytime hours a week! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?” What I’m saying is, don’t be like me. I think if you want to do that, and JUST that, it’s doable. If you’re approached about other things, say something like “I have many more years at this school, so this year I’ll just do THIS.” I said that last year and they backed off.
Hey, reading books may be fun, but doing those other things is satisfying and fulfilling. Plus, the other experiences are good for the resume. You can’t say “I read 10 books a week” on a resume, but all those other activities? They demonstrate your capabilities to potential employers and/or clients, they prove you can do other things besides change diapers, potty train, wipe noses, etc.
Hey swistle–I thought this on your prior career post too, and this may be the elephant in the room or just something you don’t want/aren’t interested in–but why don’t you write as your new career? Seriously, you have such a knack for putting the things the rest of us feel into words….not sure how feasible that is as a career, but if anyone out there makes money as a writer, you are certainly worthy of it.
My comment is on the ‘school job = summers off’ thought. I’m not sure if the individual school offices get summers off (they probably do) but I worked in the district office of my rival high school for about 3 years after I graduated high school. (It was located in the high school, but was the office for the school district, if that makes sense.) Anyway, I worked full time, all year round — we didn’t get summers off. It was a fun job though! (I operated the keypunch machine…woo hoo, how’s that for old fogey jobs?!
My opinion is yes! Insider info is always helpful :)
I very much enjoyed volunteering when my boys were in school. I met people I liked and often had fun. Every minute wasn’t fun, but who expects that? Also, it was nice to see my kids during the day, and I liked knowing more about what went on at the school.
As the others said, you must be ready to say no when you can’t/don’t want to do something.
Well…as someone who started out as Kindergarten Rep and is now the chair of the school council and the parent association, and who runs all the scholastic book fairs, and who also does a billion things around the school…you can get sucked in. You definitely can. BUT. The benefit is you get to know all the inside information and you get to spy on your children so the time suck is worth it.
I say yes. I think it would be fun for you, once you know the expectations. I think you’d be great. And YES, insider information!
I did that last year! And it was really fun, in a quite mind-numbing way. But I liked using all the gadgets in the teacher workroom. And I loved seeing what my daughter was doing so that I could ask better questions about what she was doing in school. And I learned a LOT because people forget you are there and say things that they maybe shouldn’t with an objective witness present.
And my daughter liked it as well. And when I needed to drop off a forgotten lunch box or other thing, I didn’t feel so much like a pain in the neck for asking the office to deliver it to her.
I worked for the kindergarten teachers for 90 min a week. And if I needed to move the day around, they were entirely flexible. I say pretty much an all positive experience.
I’ve volunteered a few hours a week at my kids school for years. I’ve always resisted the PTA and I’ve not joined yet! :) Like others have said, my kids love seeing me around (I do a mix of copying, etc and being in their classrooms) and I like to get to know the teachers and students and see for myself what’s going on. Just commit to what you want to do and say no to the rest. Don’t feel like you have to give a reason for everything you say no to. Just say you’re not able to do it…
I always *felt* like I maybe, kinda, sorta, wanted to volunteer when mine was small – but I worked in an office, so it wasn’t an option. But I knew moms who did – and admitted that they would get sucked into more than they bargained for.
I would say go for it – but only if you are comfortable with saying no to other requests.
I say do the copying, it seems like it might be easy to avoid the PTA type people if you do that :)
As far as the school jobs, I was actually thinking of that when you talked about what you eventually wanted do. My mom stayed at home from 1979-2000 (big age gap with the kids!). She went back to nursing (she had her RN) until this spring when she quit because it was physically pretty hard on her and the office was doing some medical practices that she wasn’t comfortable with. Anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to nursing and she got a job as a teacher’s aide this year. It’s pretty crappy pay, the money isn’t such a huge deal to her right now. But I think she really likes it. It is good hours and I think she likes it because I think she probably would have rather been a teacher.
Obviously, you are a lot younger than she is and I have no idea what your goals are, but I saw that you mentioned nursing assistant or something like that and I think a teacher’s aide is probably better work and about the same pay.
How’s that for (probably bad) advice from someone you don’t know?!?
Allison FTW. Write, write, write! (If you want to.)
Dooooooo it. It’s fun to be in a school and get to know some of the characters and get the inside dope. And, as someone pointed out, great time to listen to audiobooks, etc.
My two cents, echoing things others have said: (1) Take time off. Go to the art museum, some talks, daytime concerts, whatever floats your boat. (2) Write. Perhaps you could gather up some of your “top” posts and run them by an publishing rep. Be sure to include the recent negative book review.
I met most of my best friends by volunteering in my kids’ schools. it’s just something I really enjoyed.