Jelly cups at midnight: Do schools ask too much of mums?

IT USED to be only for the most dedicated parent. So when did helping out at your kid’s school turn into a part-time job?

The days of turning up for canteen duty once a year are over.

SO here’s a question for you. Do you ever get overwhelmed by the amount that’s expected of you by your child’s school?

When I was a kid, Mum helped at our school once or twice a year. However, these days it seems like the requests for parental assistance — either money or hours — are constant.

Please don’t get me wrong. I want schools to be happy, supported communities. I understand many schools don’t receive enough government funding and need the extra money and support in order to provide our children with a quality education.

I also understand that there are different types of government and non-government schools and their cultures may differ.

However, sometimes it feels like being the parent of a school kid is a part-time job of its own. There’s endless baking, reading assistance, gardening and numerous other types of volunteering to be done.

How are parents who work fulltime meant to cope with this, especially if they do other pro bono work already? How do single parents cope? Does anyone else frequently find themselves making jelly cups or baking cupcakes for the upcoming bake sale or school fete at midnight?

Personally, I’m torn between a desire to be part of the school community and the ongoing struggle to keep my professional and domestic balls in the air. (And let’s be honest, dropping a few reasonably often.)

Also, it seems the men aren’t asked to help with most of these school-related jobs. This seems to be mostly a “mummy” domain.

Is this model based on the 1950s when one parent almost certainly didn’t work?

Who has time to make jelly cups these days?

Apparently it’s not just me who is struggling with this. Jill, a mum of two, agrees that it’s hard to keep up.

“I expected my workload to lessen when they [her children] got to school, but it has grown. I need an executive assistant just to keep up with the requests,” she jokes.

When you talk to parents about this, guilt is a recurring theme — and one I certainly relate to. Tiff says her teenage daughter still reminds her that when she was younger, her mum never helped out with the school canteen.

“I did all I could when my daughter was in primary and I worked fulltime but I always felt guilty that it was never enough,” she says.

Other parents take an approach that I truly admire and seem incapable of myself; they simply refuse to take the guilt on.

Joel, a handsome dad of one (he made me put that in), says: “I just ignore the calls to action that I can’t help with and don’t feel a moment’s guilt.”

Blogger and CEO Kylie takes a similar approach to Joel. In the years when she was a single mum, Kylie found it impossible to respond to all the requests that came from children’s public school. In the end she simply decided not to.

“I hate and push against the pressure of mums to be and do everything. It’s expected you’ll be at every assembly, participate in all the meetings and parent events. I can’t and won’t and don’t care that others have looked down on me for it,” she says adamantly.

Interestingly, a number of parents comment that the pressure to intensively contribute stops when children leave primary school.

“Why is that? ” Julie asks, “Why can a high school cope better? Do the kids need less support? Do the high schools get more funding? Do parents feel over it by then?”

Ginger Gorman, pictured with daughter Elsa, says being the parent of a school kid is a part-time job of its own.

Michael*, a state school primary teacher with children in the independent system, brings a different perspective to the table. He believes that asking for parents involvement in the school is not just about raising funds, it’s also an “avenue for active engagement.”

Michael also says we need to pull our heads in and stop simply seeing schools as a service that we are buying.

“The increasing commodification of the education experience means that too often parents see schools as another service provider in their lives.

“And this is wrong, even if you are sending your child to an independent school, you are not buying an education, you are buying a seat for your child to participate in the learning experience of that institution,” he says.

Another friend chips in by scathingly describing this push to be publicly seen as a mum who constantly volunteers as the “fetishising of motherhood.”

As someone who is heavily involved in the P&C of her daughters’ school and also assists with classroom reading, Virginia takes a more nuanced view.

“Teachers now recognise that different kids learn differently and they try to cater for everyone with the same or fewer resources.

“[For example] I do sight words for a few hours once a week and it’s so evident that some kids get it and others need a totally different approach.

“But with just one teacher, that’s difficult so the onus falls on parent helpers,” Virginia explains.

What’s clear is that some parents, including Virginia, relish the chance to be part of the school community.

Sarah is a regular volunteer who gets great satisfaction from the feeling she’s contributing. She loves “being part of a lovely community and the joy and satisfaction it brings”.

She’s also conscious that “if I don’t do it, then that is one less person to help those that are always the ones volunteering.”

Sarah heartily disagrees with my suggestion that requests for volunteers are only directed at mothers.

“There are men volunteering at our school in a range of ways, including baking,” she says.

What do you think? Is too much expected of parents by schools? Or is volunteering a vital part of education? Comment below or join the debate on Twitter

* Michael’s name has been changed.

Ginger Gorman is an award winning print and radio journalist and a 2016 TEDx Canberra speaker. Follow her on Twitter @GingerGorman