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4 Reasons Back to School Can Suck My…

School supplies and back to school shopping cost about as much as a one-way ticket to Mexico.

By Darla Halyk of New World Mom

My least favorite summer month is August. It comes a close second to how I feel about Sundays. I love my day of rest, I really do. But as Sunday progresses into the evening hours, I feel my sense of relaxation disintegrating into the abyss of Monday morning. The Yin and Yang of Sunday fucks with my head as I try so desperately to relax, knowing I only have a few hours left before my work week begins.

I am equally perturbed with August. Being the last month of summer, I can’t help but feel a little panic. As the days roll on we only get closer and closer to September and the dreaded-back-to-school.

Besides, I am terrible at planning my kids’ summer vacation, and when August comes, I start to realize I am a bad parent. My kids have sat at home all summer watching daytime talk shows or catching up on Netflix. I haven’t even taken them on ONE outing, and I feel like an ass. Thank you, August, for reminding me exactly how atrocious at this parenting gig I am.

With August comes back to school ads depicting deliriously happy moms cheering for the first day of school. Look, Wal-Mart, I don’t give a rat’s ass about your selection of three-ring binders, regardless of how happy those moms look. I haven’t even taken my kids to the water slides yet. I certainly do not need you reminding me that I only have a few short weeks left to get back to school in order, let alone squeeze in a summer’s worth of activities into said few short weeks.

Primarily I don’t like August because back to school is imminent. I can no longer hide from it in the warmth of long summer nights. Days are shortening and the evening breeze is cooling. Fall is coming, and what does fall mean?

Fall means back to school.

I am not a fan of back to school, can you tell? I have to be completely honest with you moms; I don’t get why you are either.

Back to school can take a long hard walk through a bear infested forest as far as I am concerned.

Yes, I understand the stay-at-home mom’s perspective. Finally some freedom and time to yourself. I was once you, and even then I despised back to school.

I am nothing like the joyous moms celebrating back to school. I don’t want summer to end. I am not interested in all that back to school has to offer, and here is why.

1. School lunches are the epitome of hell.

I take no joy in school lunches. I am not the mother that sends my kids a packin’ with fun-shaped sandwiches. Or a Bento Box (I had to Google Bento Box, FYI; that’s how organized I am.) Lunches at my house consist of my daughter turning into the devil reincarnate. Inevitably she will hate the very food she picked out at the grocery store the week before, leaving me with nothing but wanting to pull my hair out. While making lunches, I easily become the least popular person in the house: “I don’t have time for this!” Something I find myself screaming often. That becomes the moment I find myself drifting off into a warm summer daydream where school lunches weren’t a thing, and I was oh-so-happy.

2. Homework causes me so much anxiety, my stomach does backflips.

Let’s get something straight here: I am somewhat intelligent. I rocked University with a 3.9 GPA and can handle a math question or two. I’m not even afraid of the Jimmy-had-two-apples-and-came-home-with-an-orange, how-does-X + Y = banana bullshit questions. But for seriously, if the school system changes the way the long division is calculated one more time, I am going to freak the fuck out. There aren’t many more things that drive me to drink other than sitting down with my child to help him with homework, only to have him cry out of pure frustration because I am doing it wrong. It is not the way the teacher showed him. For fuck’s sake, how many more ways can the long division be taught?

3. Volleyball practice, or any after school function for that matter.

I love my kids; I want them to participate in all things extra-curricular. I even encourage it. But that does not mean I have to like rushing home from work while receiving text after text from my daughter, exclaiming she is at a random school, and I am the only mom that hasn’t arrived to pick her up. My daughter may understand that I was stuck in traffic. But the judgmental glare burning a hole in the back of my head from the ONE mother who decided to be a fucking saint and stay with her until I arrived does nothing for my confidence as a parent. I get it, I was late, I have a job and traffic sucked. I. Am. Trying.

4. School supplies and back to school shopping cost about as much as a one-way ticket to Mexico.

Which, by the way, is where I would like to disappear to after I try to find every damn thing on that list. When I went to school, I would show up and lo-and-behold, there were a pencil, paper and all the books I needed. These days, not only am I buying supplies for both my children, but also apparently my children have to share all of the supplies for each child in their class. Seriously! It’s hard enough to find the correct supplies as it is. Yes, because I left it to the last minute; I have been busy, okay, cramming a whole summer’s worth of activities into a few weeks. Judge away.

Back to school is not a reprieve for me. The Lazy Days of Summer are gone. We are back at it — the busy dark days which I wake up and come home to are here. And I. Don’t. Like it.

Maybe I am lazy or just plain tired, but back to school can suck my dick.

This post was originally published on New World Mom

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About Darla Halyk

Darla Halyk is the Mom of a Teenage boy and Tween Girl. She studied Business Management at Simon Fraser University. Soon after receiving her Degree, she married and quickly got pregnant with her first child. Deciding to stay home with her kids instead of returning to the workforce after the birth of her son, she become an SAHM, but not your average one. The gig lasted until the kids were school-aged, and her marriage ended in Divorce. Darla has enjoyed writing since she was old enough to hold a pen to paper. Currently, she writes for her blog at NewWorldMom. Bringing a fresh, honest and humorous take on parenting, women’s issues, relationships, divorce, and life, in general.