Monday at noon: why isn’t this child in school? Is he Kieran Kramer’s ?!?
Just as we all know there are two types of pickle eaters in the world—sweet versus dill, and ne’er the twain shall meet—there are two types of moms in the world: the ones who think it’s okay for their kids to take a day off school when they’re clearly not sick, and the ones who don’t.
At first glance, there appears to exist a vast, howling chasm of darkness between these mothers, down which all sorts of credible arguments for both sides fall splat upon the floor of expectations wrought by umpteen generations of mothers who came before and laid down that family’s particular “To Play Hooky or Not Play Hooky?” law.
When I was a kid, a couple times a year, I’d skip school with my parents’ blessing. In fact, they’re the ones who thought of the idea in the first place. My parents were hard-working, responsible people who also happened to enjoy flouting rules they found oppressive and unreasonable. Nothing bad ever happened to me as a result from skipping school except that I developed a mild scorn for strict rule followers. I was of the mindset that rules are to be followed usually, not always. I’m still this way–for good reason, as I hope this post will prove (but probably won’t for those moms on the other side of the giant crevasse).
I usually give my kids one freebie day a year to stay home from school, and it can’t be on a day they have a project due or a big test. Sometimes I give them two days a year, one before and one after Christmas. Note: not every child takes me up on this generous offer of two days—but they all say yes to the one day.
Whenever moms on the other side present to me all their great arguments about how kids need to take responsibility and show up, I watch with brazen indifference as the arguments they lob at me take a nose-dive in that abyss separating us. And then they do the same for me. They just don’t get how a mom can possibly let her child be irresponsible—not only that, encourage the child to be irresponsible!
Well, here’s the big irony: My end goal is actually the same as the no-hooky mothers: I want my kids to survive—and thrive–in the big, scary world.
Beneath my slothful exterior lies a shrewd—Darwinists might say cunning–mindset. Let me back up a minute to explain: I’m all about educating my children, but it’s got to be a whole education, beyond the paradoxically myopic world of academia.
Damn if those brilliant intellectuals can’t cross a street without getting hit!
Ever notice?
Which is one reason I think my parents tried to give us some street cred. We were a family of A-students. There’s nothing more annoying than being around a smartypants out of touch with the real world. And there’s nothing more dangerous than being a smartypants out of touch with the real world.
In other words, the classroom is not enough–and that goes for everyone, A-student or not. We’re all annoying and dangerous when we’re out of touch with the real world.
So not only do I want my kids to know why E=MC-squared and how to dissect a frog or a sonnet, I also want them to be able to survive the sturm und drang of life–you know, the times that Shakespeare or Einstein will fall short of preparing them for a crisis.
The main thing they’ll need is flexibility. I teach my children that no one can survive a storm without bending; that skill keeps you in the game. Bending means you’re seeking out other options, and you have to be of the mindset that there are always options. Always. It’s up to us to sniff around and find them.
Sometimes, when school gets heavy or tedious, kids need a fresh outlook on life so they can go back to the old grindstone with a renewed spirit. But how do you get a fresh outlook on life when you’re in the pit of despair or boredom?
You have to find something within yourself to get yourself out—that’s the ticket. And it’s oh, so hard to do. It requires practice–
Which is why I let our kids have a day off!
Some people call it a mental health day. My goal is to get them flexing the “I can get outta here if I need to and still survive and thrive” muscle. Later, they’ll use this reflex in their own adult environments. They’ll recognize signs of stagnation. They’ll know they have to do something about it. And sometimes—sometimes—that will mean a temporary, or even permanent, turn in another direction.
My older kids have had brushes with serious issues, and I’m sorry—nothing they learned in the classroom was able to yank them by the proverbial collar out of their crises. The one with Asperger’s was very depressed at one point his freshman year in college after being cyber-bullied (he wound up transferring to another school). And the other, a perfectionist a year younger than my Asperger’s child, the girl who only wanted to cause no trouble because she witnessed so much pain and stress in the life of her older brother, developed anxiety her junior year in high school and succumbed to an eating disorder.
Let’s face a sad fact: some people don’t recover from depression or eating disorders. But when my children realized how severely they were becoming trapped, their old flexibility training came through. They remembered:
Options. You always have options. You never need to feel trapped. You can turn in another direction….renew. Recharge. Then go back and slay those dragons or go conquer new ones.
Both my kids remembered that rule and went to an adult they trusted and asked for help. They knew that the one-way ticket to doom that depression and eating disorders can be wasn’t their only option. I’m not saying that they could see clearly what the other options were.
They simply knew they existed.
They knew. Hallelujah. They knew to have hope. They knew there was an escape hatch. They knew—because we’d drilled it into them since they were babies—that nothing was written in stone. Nothing. Except the existence and power of love.
Everything else is negotiable, transient, do-able…but not of everlasting importance.
So okay, that may seem a little wild and wacky a reason to let my kids play hooky, but from the very beginning, I was planting a seed. I taught them that letting go—turning in a different direction—was nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, recognizing that pivotal juncture in a crisis shows you understand that flexibility is as much a survival skill as having a sense of responsibility…in fact, more so.
Flexibility, my friends, is everything.
So I wish my sturdy oak mom friends well. They’re teaching valuable lessons in persistence and responsibility. And they are important. To survive and thrive in today’s world, our kids will need those traits. I like to think that I have been teaching my children those same things.
But our family is also a bunch of reeds. We bend in those hurricane-force winds that are sure to hit every life at one point or another. And we spring back up, ready to grow again. That was the point all along.
Kieran Kramer, Merry Mama
Hi, I’m Kieran. My family loves music and anything that makes us laugh out loud. I try to teach my kids that we have to actively choose happiness–and if I accomplish nothing else as a mom but pass that one lesson along to them, then I think I’ve done my job.
My oldest guy, Dragon, was diagnosed in kindergarten with Asperger’s syndrome, and now he’s a junior in college; his sister Indie Girl, who’s younger by 16 months, is a college sophomore; and my 
youngest, Nighthawk, is in ninth grade. For our family, it’s about managing your weaknesses and wringing everything you can get out of your strengths. And along the way, finding joy.
Bravo! I’m standing firmly on your side of the canyon. When The Fella’s daughter wanted to leave our very, very, very successful local charter school, nationally known for it’s academic excellence (hint, hint,
), her rationale was, “I want to have a part time job, I want to hang out with my friends, I want time to goof off and watch trash TV every once in a while.”
I thought that was an excellent reason. And you know what? She continued to excel academically at her new school and got into a good college. And she went to the beach and hung out being a silly teen girl and had a job. She learned how to balance all the aspects of her life and not become bogged down on a single portion of her it.
Isn’t there always a tendency to feel that the majority must be right? History has taught us that isn’t always so. We need to keep encouraging kids to march to the beat of their own drummers. Congratulations to your daughter for following her path.
My mom would have NEVER let me have a mental health day. Partially, that was because she was working herself and wouldn’t have been able to be home with me. Man, would it have been nice to have one. Who knows what I’ll do with my kids, but this sure gave me something to think about.
I put this post up hoping to get a dialogue going. I don’t expect us all to agree, but I like stepping back and looking at the big picture of parenting and then zooming in on a small portion of it that might actually become a game-changer for some. Thanks for stopping by, Lisa!
First of all, I like sweet pickles. Secondly, I’m a former teacher, and while I totally see why kids need a day off, I also know they get lots of days off. My daughter doesn’t count because she’s not in real school yet, but when I taught there was always some holiday or teacher inservice or reward day. It was hard getting all the information taught because there were so many days when we were off. And then there’s summer. The kids are off all summer and at Christmas…just seems like there are a lot of days built into the system. So that’s my two cents, as a former teacher.
And I’m dill all the way, LOL!!!
As a teacher myself, I totally get your point, Shana, and it’s valid, about the number of days kids get off from school. I’m talking about unscripted days, though. I want my kids to go against the current and see what happens. My goal is to have them view breaking the rules as an option in life–with consequences duly noted. If they practice this under my tutelage and we get a dialogue going, then I consider it a good life experiment.
I might be shocking people here–I do believe rules and expectations exist for a good reason. But there is that rare time when we need to defy both.
I’m not a parent, but when working in a college we had to deal with a lot of parents who didn’t know how to let the kid fly from the nest.. or make decisions about anything.
This has given me a lot to think about. I have to admit, I’m a sturdy parent. =) Probably because of the way I was raised. But you’ve made some great points, Kieran, and I’m so glad that your children were able to learn that other options did exist. Above all, I hope that my daughters will know that if they’re ever in trouble, they can turn to us as parents. I know not all children feel that way.
Elise, as someone with strong core values, I can’t help but be a sturdy parent, too. Perhaps I shouldn’t have made this into an ‘either-or.” But it does seem that we often choose sides as parents.
I don’t know if y’all were at the Romance Writers of America national conference in San Francisco a number of years back. There was a guy there, an expert in creativity who’d worked with rock stars, pro golfers, literary geniuses, etc., who recommended we not practice dualistic thinking if we want to reach our full potentials. He recommended saying, “Everything is available to me.”
So as for my post today, I hope it was thought-provoking. I hope we realize as parents that we don’t *have* to choose sides, even if we do come from a very strongly centered belief system. We can pick and choose what we need from the vast array of solutions out there…and a solution that worked one day might not work the next.
That’s the exact lesson I want to teach my children: everything is available to them…even solutions that break the rules. If they stay aware of their environment and their place in it and how that place might potentially change if they take risks, in the long run, I believe they have more a chance of being fulfilled as adults. They might not be politically correct adults, or successful in the eyes of the world…but they will be fulfilled. This is my hope. Life is too short to live not being who you are.
I know this is getting a little out there, philosophical, and off-tangent, but three days ago my sister’s SIL died at age 51 of colon cancer. She had a loving husband and a darling 8-year-old boy. On her deathbed, she would go in and out of consciousness. At one point, she whispered to her husband, “You know what? I stopped being ‘me’ when I was seven. I lost myself around that time. But I want to die being completely myself.”
That was her goal.
People, let’s not wait until we die to be completely ourselves. My post was meant to remind us that the hamster wheel, while it serves our daily needs well and helps build long-term safety nets, isn’t all there is to the world. I want my kids to go through life with that belief. I want them to be adventurers and risk-takers, which is tasting true freedom.
Oh, and I realized that I’m also influenced by my past experience as a homeschooler. We’re all a bit rebellious of other people’s schedules!!! I’m going in right now to add the tag “Homeschool” to this post.
Growing up, it somehow it came into my brain, that I could take five sick days a school year. Yet, I had the good sense to fake a malady, as no way was anyone getting a mental health day, by asking for one. I will tell you the reason was because fake sick days were the best, you could read in bed, and people brought you ice cream and often a comic book. Now, of course there were real sick days too, and some were not as fun.
My daughter on the other hand worried so much about missing school, that she wouldn’t even miss it for a trip to Disneyland.
Isn’t it funny how different our temperaments are, Gayle? Some of us–like your daughter–really crave that structure, and others feel hampered by it. Of course, a lot of us are somewhere in between! Thanks for sharing your story!! :>)
My mom was very strict about following all the rules. I raised my boys that they had to think for themselves. I loved it when my 5 yo son told his speech teacher that she was wrong when she told him boys shouldn’t have long hair. This is now the one that at 21 feels his hair is too long when it’s over a 1/4 inch. I never told my boys that they could play hooky but if they got up in the morning and told me that they just couldn’t handle going into school that day they stayed home. I never had any fear that they would miss something so important that a day off unscheduled would be the failing of their academics.
Thinking for themselves! That’s what we want our kids to grow up to do. Thanks for sharing your family’s experience!
I know a lot of college teachers who say that they’re amazed how helpless their students act…I noticed the same thing when I taught high school. So many kids seemed to lack the ability to make their own decisions. And I don’t blame them–most of them had helicopter parents who wouldn’t LET them grow up.
I don’t know what happened to parenting or when the shift came. I think sometime after the 60′s. Yes, we’re more enlightened in so many ways these days, but we’ve also taken some huge strides backwards.
Just yesterday I met a man who joined the Navy at age 17 in World War II. I can’t IMAGINE any of my kids being able to do that. But what he did really wasn’t that unusual at the time. We might say it’s wrong now…but was it? Was it really wrong for that guy to act like a man at 17? Hundreds of generations had done it before him!
Food for thought.
:>)
I do the same thing
I consider myself a pretty strict parent, but I totally get the playing hooky thing – probably because my mom let me do it Sometimes I’d stay home all day, but sometime she’d just come get me from school early and take me shopping. I loved it. But I think everyone needs mental-health days, I took them when I worked full-time, of course I’d generally use them as writing days, but still. Everyone needs a break every now and then. And I have to admit that I like sweet pickles, but I LOVE dill pickles.
I just stumbled across this blog post after being harshly judged by coworkers for mentioning that I grew up with “mental health” days. My mother always let me and my brothers have 2 or 3 “mental health” days a year in school. When we got into high school and transported ourselves to school, we were allowed to assess whether we needed a day or not. We never ever abused the privilege, and we all made excellent grades. Now all three of us are happily married with good careers. As you state, I think knowing that life doesn’t always have to be rigid helped me cope with agonizing depression throughout most of my college years. I’m expecting my first child soon and I wholeheartedly agree that he/she will get “mental health” days when they need it. I’ll let the judging roll off my back because I know I was much better off for it, and my child will be as well.