Another Reason Why “Back to School Night” Sucks

This comes from a good friend who — I must emphasize — is one of the best moms I know.  Seriously.  She’d make June Cleaver go home and bust all the high heels off her shoes in a fitful rage of jealousy.  So all I know is, if it could happen to her. . .

 Here’s my “World’s Worst Moms” story that could have ended in disaster.  It took place during a heat wave in August.  About two months after our third child was born, my older children’s elementary school had “Back to School Night.”  In our town, this is an event that your children do not want you to miss.  They want you to have the opportunity to meet their new teacher and see the cool artwork they’ve painted on display.  Not to mention that some teachers issue extra credit for those parents who show up (no pressure!).  Oddly enough, children are strongly discouraged from attending this event.  So, as all the parents have to do, we scramble to find a sitter.  My husband and I decided to do a “kid exchange” with friends who were in the same predicament.  We would drop off our kids at our friends house for one hour while we attended Back to School Night and, in return, watch their kids while they attended this grand event.  Of course I felt justified towing my infant along with me to this event, after all, I was nursing.

As every parent can relate, life is chaos with an infant and complete chaos with an infant and young children.  While my husband scrambled to get our kids a mac and cheese dinner before we took the kids to my friends, I nursed my baby so that he would hopefully be satisfied and sleep during Back to School.  We were running out the door, late as usual.  We drove by our friends house and our children hopped out of our van as we waved goodbye from our car window.  As we got to the school parking lot late, there was not a parking spot in site.  We drove around in the adjacent neighborhood searching for a spot.  Finally we parked and ran down to the school dripping sweat in the 100 degree + weather.  As we stopped by the “greeting table”  to grab a water and cookies that had been set out for the parents, some friends approach us and made a comment about how nice it must be for us to not have any kids in tow — especially our infant.   In that instant, my husband and I looked at one another and screamed “OUR INFANT!”  With all the juggling that evening we had strapped him into his car seat in the back of the van and forgot that he was even there.  We were now playing “zone” whereas we were used to the “man on man” approach for the last three years.  Horrified, my husband and I ran back to the car parked in the neighborhood to thankfully find our infant awake and staring out the window.  As we opened the door to the van, took our child out, we noticed that we were being glared down by a man in the neighborhood who could see what was happening.  We were speechless, knowing that there very easily could have been a different outcome.  We walked with shame back to the school hoping that no one would notice our “bad parent” move.

Nine years later, my husband and I can thankfully laugh at this story.  I had nightmares about this incident for years after.  When I hear those tragic stories of parents driving to work and forgetting that their child is in the back seat of the car, I no longer regard them as complete idiots.