A lazy mom's guide to back-to-school shopping
Also eco-friendly, socially responsible, and ethical
Last week, I got my teeth cleaned and while I was sitting in the chair, mouth wide open, the hygienist asked me if I’d done my back-to-school shopping yet.
“I don’t, ”I said.
Actually, I made guttural noises that were supposed to mean “I don’t,” which she didn’t understand and then we both waited for her to finish her actual work so I could say it again, but in the interests of good narrative, let’s skip that part and get to the why.
When my kids started school, I was living in the Netherlands. When fall came around, I said something about back-to-school shopping and my husband didn’t know what I was talking about. So, I described the American end-of-summer shopping experience, getting new outfits and school supplies. Then he said, “but they don’t need any clothes.” Yes, but… I tried to answer. And in that moment, it became clear to me that I was describing a ritualized consumer experience not unlike Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, and so on and so forth.
Over time, I started to see a lot of parenting through the same lens. I was being sold a bill of goods about what “good parenting,” excuse me, “good mothering” looked like that didn’t work for me.
School lunches were another great example. First of all, I got lucky with Dutch kids in Dutch schools because the cultural norm is a sandwich. A Dutch sandwich is a slice of bread, butter, a slice of cheese or meat, and then another slice of bread. Add anything extra and it becomes a deluxe sandwich or a healthy sandwich and people will comment. You think I’m kidding, but believe me, even adults will give you the old, “oh, enjoy your meal!” dripping with sarcasm because you put ham and cheese on your sandwich, you decadent woman you!
But two years ago we ended up back in North America and one of the first things I noticed was that kids at the elementary school were carrying two bags to school. Huge backpacks (still don’t get that) and lunch bags. My daughter, ever the food lover, came home with thick descriptions of the kids lunches. I’m not kidding, she would have made Clifford Geertz proud and may be a budding anthropologist. Also, if you’re eating near her, be sure that she’s judging you.
Kids were turning up with lunches that were leftovers, some home cooked and others take out. Others had neatly packed lunches. Many had numerous pre-packaged items in their lunch bags. She also reported on what kids had to say when they opened their lunches. She overheard lots of “my mom” and “my dad” referring to the lunch providers. She surmised that parents were packing lunches for these kids.
I take it as a lazy mom’s point of pride that instead of asking why I didn’t pack her lunches, she asked me why other kids didn’t pack their own lunches.
You see, the lazy mother works hard to push as much responsibility for daily life on to her children as possible. She also works hard to minimize her participation in any non-essential parental duties.
It starts with alarm clocks. I am not an alarm clock. I’m not properly trained, definitely do not have any qualifications, also I’m a night owl so getting up before anyone in the house is guaranteed to make me grumpier than usual. But I have children that have to get up for school. Solution? Alarm clocks. They’re responsible for getting themselves out of bed. Has that made them late? Yup, sure. But they didn’t like that, so they now get up on time. In fact, my daughter (bless her) gets up almost two hours before we have to leave for school because she hates being late and has realized she loves the mornings. She and my husband have turned mornings into their own special hour, playing Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” and singing along loud enough to try to wake me up. It doesn’t work.
Lunches were next. As the parent who wasn’t going to get out of bed, I was already doing well, but the lazy parenting ethos says the kids should be making their own lunches as soon as possible. Since ours were just having sandwiches, this started fairly early. These days, both kids have been making their own lunches for so long that I don’t even ask if they’ve done it any more. My contribution is to provide cool lunch boxes for my daughter (sourced at the thrift shop, because I’m cheap and lazy) and she packs lunches that make me a little jealous. My latest find was a tin with divided sections and she happily listened to Miley and cut up celery and carrots and strawberries to fill her tin.
Yeah - she makes wildly complicated lunches that use several containers every day. It’s a ton of work and it makes her happy. In fact, she’s really proud of her lunches and food experiments. She’s also learned a lot about what she needs to prepare to fuel her body through 4-5 hours of dance every afternoon.
The next thing to tackle is school supplies. In the Netherlands it was easy - we didn’t buy any because the school supplied them. Quite the contrast with me buying half a dozen glue sticks that the teacher collected and put in a class bin on the first day of school here. OK. Last year we took it a step further and decided to try not buying any new school supplies. Binders and locker shelves and even paper came from the thrift store. I don’t buy pens because I buy pen refills instead, and we buy backpacks to last. My kids had one backpack each for grade school and they’ll (hopefully) only need one each for junior high and high school.
Meanwhile, I’m seeing articles on the internet about how to do eco-friendly shopping for school and it’s a mess of amazon affiliate links.
Folks, eco-friendly shopping is always not shopping. It’s always reusing first. It’s usually an easier and cheaper solution than whatever that article is suggesting you click on.
Why am I writing this, my little before school rant, this morning? Because I’m tired of all these voices telling us that good parenting is doing all the things for our kids and buying all the things for our kids. Our job is to get these kids ready to go out in the world and take care of themselves. They’re going to need to feed and clean themselves. They’ll have to manage budgets and learn to make do with what they have. They’re going to have to learn to live by their inner compass and not tik tok influencers. How are we helping them if we’re looking outward for the right answers?
I’m a lazy mom in the sense that I don’t do things for my kids that they can do for themselves (age appropriate, developmentally appropriate, lovingly). It’s my shorthand for teaching them to be independent and to take care of themselves. And here’s my unexpected reward - they’re kind of amazing human beings. They don’t think shopping is for recreation and help around the house without (excessive) complaining.
I get to be proud of them. I get to watch them grow into responsible human beings. And I get to experience them taking care of me in ways that surprise me all the time. It’s my son coming out of the house to carry groceries when I come home - without me asking. It’s my daughter telling me she and grandma can take care of her dance shopping without me because she knows how much I value time and dislike dance shopping.
I also know that my kids feel taken care of. I may call myself lazy, but if they need something, of course I’ll take care of them. I’m only lazy in that they should be doing the things for themselves that they can do for themselves. The politically correct term might be that I’m an age appropriate youth independence enabling parental figure. But lazy is so much more fun to say.
Unbelievably brilliant!