The car ride with teens is time that I get to talk to my teens. I drive my child to high school so I can hear about what he has planned for the day. I literally drive by the bus stop on our way to school. |
I have 3 kids and #2 is real in my house. I usually can’t or won’t make it to be first in line and will often be a little late. On some days, I have to pick all 3 in a row and drop off and it never goes perfectly smoothly. We live in a high traffic area and I have 3 kids in 3 different schools, all in high traffic areas. The lights before my kids’s schools are terrible and can take 10-20 min alone due to traffic. |
Let’s say the school has 1000 kids. And 10% of them have some lesson/therapy/apt right after school once a week. That’s 20 kids per day right off the bat whose parents really need to get them first. Not the same 20 each day, but still a sizable amount in the carpool lane. Throw in another 1% for the nanny-picks-up-snowflake and you’ve got 30 care really early. That will look/feel like a lot in the carpool lane line, when really it’s quite a small percentage of the school. So maybe chill and just assume families are doing what’s best for them -Mom who aims to get to school at the tail end of dismissal so I don’t need to deal with the carline chaos |
This is a nice list, but I'd add 7. Because I know someone who is like this: 7. You are too anxious to carpool with your neighbor 2 doors down, and too anxious to let precious Brayden ride the bus, and you have nothing better to do, so you get to school ridiculously early and wait in your car for Brayden. This is my neighbor whose kid is in the magnet program with mine. |
We used to carpool and still do when we can but as kids get older, it isn’t Brayden and Johnny who lives down the block going to rec soccer down the road. Now kids play different competitive sports and travel basketball practice is 20 min away and Johnny didn’t make the travel team and Braden now plays baseball, not soccer. Also in middle and high school (private), their classmates don’t even live in the same town. They can live 30 min out of our way so can’t carpool. We use the bus as much as possible and carpool as much as possible but it doesn’t always work out for us. |
I can imagine you sitting in your darkened living room, peering from behind your curtains and thinking these lovely thoughts as your neighbor leaves for pick up. Why are you so into your neighbor’s business? I WFH and have no idea what my neighbors do for school transportation. |
Eh, I don’t get there early. I get there about 5 min after dismissal. For one because it takes my son at least this long to get out of the building and is chit chatting at dismissal. But I hate carpooling with neighbors. Sometimes we run late, sometimes they do- but I prefer not to deal with anyone else’s issues. |
My kids take the bus but OP sounds like one of those miserable judgmental women I avoid. |
It’s not at all shocking that neighbor mom doesn’t want Brayden in a car with this lunatic. |
DP here. Better than "I have an hour a day to sit in a non moving carline" flex. |
Each and every one of you who says you turn your car off while you sit is a liar. |
I do this and it is Glorious (though I turn my car off). I get to the line calmly, work on my laptop or phone or call a friend, and then leave without chaos or incident. I generally get to avoid the moms who speed and cut-off as though we are thick in city traffic running from a street takeover mob. I one time had a mom who blew past me from behind as I stopped at a stop sign. I like to avoid that kind of nuts.
Now my wait is made more amusing thinking of you all tsk tsking me...so thank you. |
This is a really weird thing to be angry about. This is it? Do you read the news? Live in reality. This is just embarrassing and even more embarrassing that people have been debating this for 13 pages now. |
The difference is no one is bragging about sitting in the carpool lane. They’re just minding their own business, being judged by OP and her ilk who seem to be under the impression that walking for 20 whole minutes around their boring suburban neighborhood every day is just SO impressive ![]() |
NP. My kids walk/take public transit but this thread has helped show me what I have long believed, which is that a lot of carpool moms are absolutely crazy lunatics kids need to stay far away from. No thank you. So weird to be so up in your neighbors’ business that you track their comings and goings. |