We are officially the "crazy" family at our daughter's elementary school. I am sure this won't surprise that many of you, but I guess we didn't stand out there until recently. Or maybe we did and I just didn't realize it until now.
So every year the school, like schools acorss America, has a field day where the kids get to play all kinds of fun games outside. I loved field day as a child and I love watching my daughter do field day now. This is no knock on field day. At Bean's school everyone also orders t-shirts to commemorate the event in colors that correspond with each child's grade. Everyone wears them on the day and the school looks like a floating sea of purple, red, green etc. as each grade moves from event to event.
Last year I did not order Bean one. We did not need a t-shirt, I thought it was a bit of a waste and threw the form in the recyling bin. No one from the school said anything but on the day of the event Bean was given one b/c apparently not having a t-shirt is not OK. This year I did not order one either. But this year I got a very kind email from the room mom expressing how concerned she was that Bean might be the only one in the school without a t-shirt. At this point I asked Bean if she wanted a t-shirt. I would hate to give my daughter a complex she will have to pay to see a therapist for when she is an adult. Bean did not want a t-shirt, and making me proud, she said she would just recylcle last year's shirt insteading of wasting the earth's resources.
Another email was exchanged once again encouraging the purchase of a t-shirt. At some point in the various email exchanges I am told the color is purple. Upon learning the shirt was purple I knew Bean would want it. Purple is her absolutely, positively, most favorite color in the whole, wide world. So more email was exchanged insuring we could still order the shirt at this late date. I left the final choice up to Bean though; I sent her to school this morning with the money and told her to do what she thought best. I still don't know if we will be receiving the shirt or not. Though I expect more email if we are not.
So how did this perfectly cute field day t-shirt turn me into the crazy mom?? Why am I am the only one thinking that the school has 400 kids, so 400 t-shirts, every year? How much oil is used to grow that cotton, manufacter those t-shirts, and transport them to suburbia? How many soldiers died in Iraq for that oil so my kid can look perfectly coordinated on field day? And don't even get me started on the child slave labor in some country like Honduras where the shirts were probably made anyway. The ironic thing is that the kids just did a 6 week segment on the rain forest and how it is important to save the earth. I guess not important enough to just reuse your field day t-shirt from last year.
Yes, we are the crazy family.
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3 comments:
I truly understand you! The school where I work orders 5th grade T-shirts for all the kids before they leave us. Every teacher that works with them gets a free one too. The people that order them can't understand why I wouldn't want a free T-shirt every year. I try to explain to them that free to me isn't free to the Earth. Each shirt adds to my footprint! :)
It seems to me that if they want everyone to have a shirt, they should buy/give everyone a shirt. If they want you to pay for it, there should be no pressure to buy one.
I don't know if we qualify as the "crazy" family, but my son is the one informing his classmates that Santa Claus isn't real, and *no telling* what he is saying about where babies come from, seeing as how he has watched both his brothers being born.
Oh, I'm just positive that you are 100% earth friendly in ALL that you do. Of course your babies were only in cloth diapers? Right?
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