Partum Me?! My PTO destiny…

Thank you to everyone who wrote in via comments, Facebook, and email to express support over last week’s post.  Part of what I love about writing Partum Me is that I’ve found a group of parents out there in the blogosphere who are so supportive, and that includes being critical in times when I probably need a reality check.  Your suggestions and encouragement rocked.  Surprisingly we found that our local Costco has a lot of sustainable and/or organic options, and of course, I found an awesome iPhone app that lets me enter prices for items at a variety of stores and then figure out which store has the best price.  We’re going to do our best to source our food from our local farm stand and other regional resources, but knowing that there are options is definitely nice.  This is my first week trying to eat as clean as possible, so I’ll post an update about that once I have a few days under my belt, which will hopefully be a little looser next time I talk about this subject!

We’ve had an ongoing issue that I’ve hesitated to write about here until there was some sort of resolution.  The issue was with Charlie’s daycare…again.  (Remember this post?)  To summarize, he’s been going to the same place, three days a week, since he was about three months old.  The staff and director at our particular center are phenomenal.  It’s a small place, with lots of individual attention, lots of emphasis on learning through play, and a whole lot of love.  Unfortunately, the company that owns our center and a couple others announced even more policy changes which started to not only affect the quality of care but also created an increasingly hostile relationship between the parents and upper management.  Things came to a boiling point a couple weeks ago.  The teaching staff that we love was getting increasingly frustrated, parents were ready to either leave or go to the media with our concerns, and upper management was being represented by one person who was rude, unprofessional, vengeful, and clearly not as knowledgeable about child development as she claimed to be.

We had two options – take Charlie away from the only teachers he’d ever known, who we love and trust, and put him in a new daycare that we might not be able to afford for the long term OR try to organize the parents to bring our concerns over the heads of middle management, to the ownership of our daycare, in an effort to improve the situation and keep our kids with the teachers they adore.

Care to guess which option we chose?

Yes, of course, I contacted all the parents I could find and we worked together to organize, voice our concerns, and make a change.  We had a ton of help from the staff and I want to stress that the effort was not all mine.  Many parents stepped up and we’ve had some very positive meetings with the owner of the day care company, who has taken over more of the management and eliminated the person who was making these crazy policy decisions without her input.  We are going to continue working together to do some fundraising and volunteering for our center.  I know what some might say – we pay money to these folks to watch our kids so why are we having to do more work on top of that?  I guess I just feel like parent involvement is never a bad thing.  In today’s educational climate, parents almost have to get heavily involved (even in the best public and private schools) to ensure their children’s needs are met.  Others might wonder why we didn’t just pull our kids out and go somewhere else.  That answer is simple: we love our kids enough to want to do what we can to give them stability and keep them with teachers they know and love.  Of course if their well-being was in jeopardy, there’s no question what we would have done.  But I also know that the director of our center would risk her own well-being to ensure the safety of our children, so that was never a worry for me.

I joked during one meeting that this might be my training for membership in a PTO (Parent Teacher Organization).  Another parent said, “Who are you kidding?  You’ll be a PTO President!”  And who am I kidding?  He’s probably right.  I spent most of my 20s denying my Type-A-ness, but now that I’m a parent there’s no hiding it.  Can working moms even be in PTOs now?  When I was a kid, my working mom couldn’t join the PTO because their meetings were always during the day in the middle of the week.  I guess I’ve always sort of viewed these groups as little more than a way for parents to get together and gossip about the non-PTO parents – lots of parent politics and the type of judging that I rail against.  But it’s also possible that these I’m being hypocritical and presumptive. I have no desire to be one of those helicopter parents who negotiates for better grades or special treatment for Charlie.  I’m pretty sure, though, that I WILL be that mom who organizes bake sales and yells at Board of Education meetings. At least I’m embracing my future, right?

Are any of my dear readers PTO members?  PTO haters?  What was your experience?  How have you balanced your Type-A personality with your desire to limit your child’s level of embarrassment over having a pushy parent?