By Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence
“You in this week?”
That’s been my father’s most recent greeting and it’s one, depending on the week and what’s been going on, that I have a variety of responses to.
See, I never set out to be a writer, and I find myself getting asked weekly five years later if I’ve got a thousand-word article casually hanging out in my back pocket like it’s no big deal.
At that point, I enjoy a witty but deeply sarcastic response, one that he’d laugh at and secretly be proud of and possibly prevent him from asking for an another one in a week from now.
But he always still does.
I then like reminding him what this time of year is like for parents of school-aged kids.
The dreaded ben hazmanim when there’s no camp, no school, and many electronic devices for each kid to contact you on and ask, “Where are you?” when all you’re trying to do is replenish the food they keep finishing.
“What’s for breakfast/snack/lunch/snack/dinner/dessert/snack?”
“I’m bored—what are we doing today?”
“Can we make a lemonade stand with cookies and snacks where you make the lemonade and cookies and snacks?”
“My friends and I are gonna go to the mall but no one else’s parents could pick up or drop off so I told them you could.”
And my all-time favorite usually takes place half a day before school starts after begging the kids to take an inventory of their stuff and report back on what they need for the new school year without me having to rummage through their tornado of a closet and take stock of what’s needed myself. I know, so lazy of me.
When they insist that they’re all set, and I take their word for it, all’s well until they shake me awake in a panic wearing a pair of pants that definitely fit before the summer that now looks like shorts.
There are the endless lists of stuff needed, and in our communities, with each family clocking in at 4–10 kids per family, things get pricey.
Just like the end of the school year not too long ago, when classes seemed sort of optional, and there was a general sense of relaxation with the excitement of the summer season upon us, we now arrive at the time of the new school year.
A time when parents have the printouts of the school supplies each kid is required to bring to school on a flatbed truck because it would never possibly fit in their knapsack.
Four hundred sharpened pencils? Check.
A Costco-sized pack of tissues? If you need that many, you should probably stay home.
Folders in every color of the rainbow, index cards with the rings attached, it’s a veritable treasure hunt for parents like me who didn’t sign up for the school supply packs on time and found myself in a ghost town supply aisle that used to be known as Target, where there wasn’t even glue sticks remaining on the shelves.
There’s additional accoutrement needed for the start of the year too.
Knapsacks bigger than your second grader’s body, and new sneakers is a must.
All the personalized goodies that every kid MUST have that will make it to the lost-and-found table in record time once your kid loses the lunchbox on the second day of school.
You give your teenager a once over after he comes home from camp sporting the haircut he made the executive decision in getting from the kid that swore up and down that he knew how to cut hair.
You did a little mental mom math and thought that a super talented local barber has definitely had to do damage control on botched up haircuts in the past, and this wouldn’t be his first or last one, so that was added to the endless list of “things to do to convince others that your kids are cared for by someone (aka me) who cares about what they look like for 10/12 months of the year.”
The other two months are open season for mismatched outfits, shoes that don’t fit (but who needs shoes in the summer?), and a mullet that was trending on social media that he had to experiment in the bathroom with a shaver.
The school year is here, and that manilla folder with the homework your kid was supposed to look at during the summer months that got stuck on a closet shelf somewhere is now frantically being searched for.
Uniforms are being tried on, and the guidelines of what color sneaker soles are acceptable are being reviewed before purchasing anything. Those printout templates of which grade each kid is entering that parents force their kids to pose with are ready for that day next week when routine is once again reintroduced into our kids’ lives.
It’s sad to see the summer come to an end, but would we really appreciate it and all the happiness it brings if it were a constant?
Probably not.
So, with that, I wish you all the best of the rest of the summer and good luck in helping the kids reacclimatize to the new school year.
Then go get yourself a coffee and sit quietly in your car for an hour before rediscovering what life is like when kids have school. n
Malkie Gordon Hirsch is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of 5, a writer, and a social media influencer.
