I am an Uninvolved Parent

The first year my daughter was in day care, I joined the parents' group, which mainly organizes and runs various fund-raising projects for the center.

I sucked at it.

Which is why I dread the day I will have to either become or alienate that most fearsome of creatures: The Involved Parent.

Or, rather, mothers who join groups. School-related, sports-related, doesn't matter.

I hate groups. Even groups with causes. Remember group projects back in grade school? I was the nerd-girl who took it upon herself to do the whole project, myself, at home just so we wouldn't have to work as — you know — a group.

I'm bitchy that way.

(Unless, of course, we're talking about college physics labs and how my survival depended on the knowledge and capabilities of those who actually understood what a vertex (vortex?) was. Then, due to selfish and desperate tendencies, I was all about the group concept. Still, I got a D, which proved once again that groups are not always for the greater good — i.e. my need to pass a physics course in order to get a B.A. in journalism.)

And now, as a mama, I must regularly face — or worse, join — groups of parents? They scare me. Even the most well-intentioned ones.

PTA. Booster clubs. Various niche parent groups that show up en masse at school board meetings.

I'm sooooo not a joiner. That's probably why I like my professional role of paid observer thankyouverymuch.

Even if I weren't a journalist and allowed to take sides and urge change, I'd be more inclined to fire off letters to the editor than to join forces with other like-minded parents.

Because too often, there seems to be this weird lemming effect.

And of course, I don't like groups. Did I mention that? The fact that I hate groups?

It's why the mere suggestion of a group playdate makes me stammer inane excuses. Why I loathe children's birthday parties where all the parents linger.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that I can't seem to find common ground with the parents at these gatherings. They're talking about their kids' favorite Sunday School teacher or T-ball practice, whereas I've arrived fresh from covering a court proceeding involving a drunk, off-duty postal worker who hit a kid just stepping off a school bus. Or interviewing a Katrina evacuee who thinks she's having a nervous breakdown but isn't sure what to do about it or how to deal with her troubled teenage son. Or walking a grieving mother through the details of the night her teenage daughter was killed in a streetracing accident.

Yeah, there's a natural conversation starter.

I'm also used to the "openness" of a newsroom, where we all know who takes which anti-depressant and who's down to their last $13 and may need a ride over the weekend because he/she can't afford to buy gas.

We talk about everything.

Husbands who piss us off and why.
Sex.
Whether we drink too much.
Whether our friends drink too much.
Sex.
Whether the defendant featured in the trial of the day will end up pleading, as well as all the minute details about the defendant that we've each gleaned from our respective sources.
Our periods.
How broke we are.
Surgical procedures we would/wouldn't have done — if we ever had the money, that is.
Sex.
Or lack thereof.


We speak freely of all of this. At work. And I love it.

Oh, yeah. And we cuss. Profusely.

Hence the difficulty in taking kid to a birthday party and trying to maintain a "normal" mama persona. I dread the small talk because I'm not much good at it. Often, I'm inclined to blurt out tidbits that most people would consider waaaay TMI. (What constitutes normal, everyday conversation in my world doesn't translate well in MamaLand.)

So I'm pretty much a dud at such events. The girl in the corner with her Dixie cup of fruit punch who hides in the bathroom every 10 minutes or who's paying so much attention to her offspring, that said children are looking at her in puzzlement. (You know the technique, I know you do. It's a common tactic — pretending your kids need your immediate and constant attention so that you don't have to talk to the other people around you? Yeah, that technique. I employ it often, much to my tots' chagrin.)

What's with Mom? Why won't she shut up and just let us romp in the ball pit?

I can be extremely entertaining when I'm sharing tales of my parenting foibles or describing my various neuroses. I can't seem inject the same vivaciousness and sense of humor, however, into a discussion about whether toddlers are old enough to have speech impediments. Or which funder raiser is likely to be most effective. Or which team is doing how well -- or poorly.

Where are the newsroom mommies who offer candid, hilarious parenting confessions so freely? Or all those cool blogger moms who wouldn't flee if I forgot myself and cussed in the midst of our conversation?

Where are the mommies who make themselves vulnerable to other mommies in the name of solidarity?

Until I find them — and I know they're out there, if not in my community then surely somewhere in this state — I'll keep putting off the day I have to join anything.

Or maybe I'll just linger by the punch bowl, spiking all the other parents' drinks.

The drunker they are, the more normal I'll appear to them.

Or at least, maybe they won't remember what I said.

Maybe.

In keeping with the self-reflection so evident in this post (ha!), I'll devote the next one to describing the eight random things about myself that might surprise you — having been tagged by damselfly, who was tagged by Julie.

I promise, the revelations won't be the kind suitable for casual playdate or birthday-party conversation.