musings

I am sitting here in the car lane at the elementary school. Absentmindedly observing the fifty some or more butterflies that are flitting about in the field next to the school. I see after-school and extended care kids getting into daycare buses, the same kids whose parents dropped them off a half hour before the bell rang today. I suppose they won't get picked up from after care for a few more hours.

I feel in a bit of a time crunch picking my kids up and having time with them only till eight thirty, which we have declared school night bedtime. I don't know how any parenting gets done when you have the early and extended care situation going. I think it's horrific. That sounds impossibly judgemental, and I know a lot of parents dont't have an easy choice there. If it ever gets to that, I will live in a trailer before I only see my kids to wake them up and put them to sleep. I have quit jobs and lost income before to be at home with my kids, and I'd do it again.

It is a tradgedy, and I am full of sadness for those families. Homeschooling, it's easy to be idealistic and not notice the rest of the neighborhood. The school our kids attend now is small and operates on a neighborhood principle-the kids going here live closeby. I see five year olds holding their younger siblings hand, in this big, crime ridden city, no parent in sight, standing waiting for the bus, and afterward getting on a boxy white daycare bus.

Family in this sense is merely a business arrangment. These students I speak of are not the majority it seems, thank God. But even thirty kids is too many for my perspective. Lord, have mercy.