Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Day 1335 - Perfect Attendance


Currently, we are suffering through a never-ending tag team of illness.  Emma gets sick.  Andrew gets sick.  We get sick.  Andrew gets sick.  Emma gets sick.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Thankfully, Crazy Grandma and Lazy Grandpa are in town so they are able to watch the kids at home.  Otherwise, Lisa and I would have had to take a bunch of days off from work.  It's tough for Lisa to take days off since she's a teacher, and the only time off I get when you work in the television industry is when you're cancelled.

As I began to think about the fine line of taking days off versus sending your kids back to school, I reached an epiphany.  I had a flashback of elementary school when your teacher and principal would award students with certificates of achievement.  Personally, I received "Most Asian" six years in a row; it was always between me and a filipino girl.

And then I remembered the "Perfect Attendance" award.  As a child, I was always amazed that someone could go without missing a single day of school.  But as an adult and occasional parent, I now see that the perfect attendance award actually awards only one thing:  LAZY PARENTS WITHOUT BABYSITTERS!

That's right.  I'm calling all of you out.  All of you parents who send your kids to school although you very well know your kid had been vomiting snot all night long.  Just because you don't want to take the day off, your actions are making every other kid in class susceptible to colds, flues, and grumpy parents.

Listen.  I get it.  We all have to make a living, and it's much more difficult to stay home with sick kids than push papers around the office.  But to give a student an award for perfect attendance is a bunch of B.S.  What is it really awarding?  I say we rename the award to "Perfect Attendance Because Mommy & Daddy Had No More Sick Days".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Really? My daughter has had perfect attendance two years in a row and we have free daycare in the form of my mother that can have her any time she is sick, we have been lucky she has not been sick, but we do NOT miss school for doctor's appointments and vacations like most parents who emphasize disney world over school.