I am used to people liking me. I am used to people being polite and making nice. I am used to people making eye contact with me and acknowledging that I am standing in front of them. Especially if they are, oh, I don’t know, speaking to me and giving me instructions.Turns out not everyone likes me. Not everyone is polite and makes nice. Some people don’t go to the trouble of making eye contact. Those same people are seemingly unable to differentiate between adults and children when they impart instructions.
Now I remember why I hated public school.
This morning, I was late dropping Max off at school. The reason was that he had a super messy bm and ended up needing a bath. Then Cam threw one of her super amazing tantrums and it was all downhill from there. I put earplugs in to muffle the sound of her shrieking all the way to daycare. Mom of the year, right here.
At Max’s school, when you drop your child off late, you have to sign them in at the front office. Makes sense, they have already taken attendance, they need to have all the children accounted for, I get it. So, off Max and I go, I fill out the purple slip and the attendance book as required and then wait for the administrative person behind the counter to sign it. Apparently she was on the phone with Scott confirming whether or not Max would be attending school today.
She approached the counter, handed me a magnet with the school’s contact information printed on it, the attendance phone number underlined in blue pen telling me "your husband asked that I give this to you". She signed the purple slip for Max, made a comment about us needing to call in if Max was going to be late, and walked away. She didn’t even look at me. Not once. If she hadn’t signed the late slip and pushed it back across the counter at me, I wouldn’t have even known she was attempting to interact with me. Huh.
I walked Max to his room, dropped him off, and asked his EA and JK teacher what the name of the woman with the brown hair in the front office was. “Cindy”, they responded. It wasn’t really Cindy, but lets pretend it was. I said, “oh thanks, I am going to go introduce myself”.
I walked back to the front office, approached the front counter, and stuck out my hand, looking right at her. It took her a moment to realize what I was doing. Whoa - crazy - someone trying to interact! She met my eyes hesitantly, and shook my hand.
“Hi. Cindy? I’m Katrina, I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Max’s mom.” She looked at me blankly, so I continued. “Max has a diagnosis of Autism. Some mornings are really hard. In fact, you likely have no idea what we go through in a morning”.
“I understand that, but I’m very busy and the procedure is that you call to inform us….blah blah blah fishcakes” she said.
“Yes, in future I will do so. I appreciate that you are busy, and I understand it’s a total pain in the ass for you to have to call my house. I get it. And in a perfect world, I would have him outside of his classroom lined up with all his classmates 5 minutes before the bell rings every day. That's our goal every morning and we really do our best”.
At this point, the vice principal, who had been listening in from the safe distance of the photocopier stepped up and said “would it work better if we assume Max will be here unless you call?”, to which I replied, “Yes. If I don’t call, he’s coming”. She then did that thing that makes me NUTS and actually ushered me out of the office by placing her hand on the back of my arm, turning me around and walking with me to the office door. I hate that. A lot. It’s completely condescending, an intrusion of personal space, and without verbalizing it, she basically said, “get the hell out, we’re done talking with you”.
I walked out to my car, and thought to myself, this, right here, is why I hated public school so much. The people who work there talk down to you, regardless of whether you are a child or an adult. And really, the condescending tone is not appropriate for kids or adults. It’s a crappy way of extolling the limited power you have and it’s a poor way of communicating.
When did it become okay to treat people like they don’t matter, that they are an inconvenience and not even worth looking at? And how did me introducing myself make me the person causing a scene? Unreal.
