Why are some parents so clueless?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op is the type of woman who doesn’t work outside the home so to make herself feel busy and important and as if she has a job, she takes very small things like being team mom incredibly seriously and spends an hour on an email update.

However, those of us who DO work outside the home and have to jiggle a million tasks and keep up with a work inbox and myriad requests at our job don’t keep up with personal email on a daily basis and miss her stuff. I check my personal email maybe twice a week. So I might miss some stuff but I’m not a pain in the ass about it. I won’t ask you to catch me up. It’s just that I might not contribute to some canned food drive or whatever because I missed the email to bring it in. The world spins madly on.

Nope, I’m OP and I do work outside the home. You are not busier than I am. But I make the time to help organize my kids’ activities. Parents like you who never help out because you are somehow busier than the rest of us is one thing. But when you don’t even take the time to read (very short) instructions about what your kid needs to show up with, that is totally disrespectful to your kid who is benefitting from the experience and the volunteers who are organizing it for you.

Op, I used to be you. I was a working mom and was heavily involved in my kids’ activities. I was often frustrated at parents. I would plan a class party and so many people wouldn’t pay the $6 I requested to cover pizza and craft supplies.

I’m now a SAHM. I’m still very involved. I don’t do everything. I don’t care nearly as much anymore and everything is fine. I’m planning my kids’ class holiday party again.

I frantically text people sometimes and others sometimes ask me. It isn’t that big of a deal. Some things I know details well. Others I know nothing about.

[Anonymous]

Haven't read all the replies, but the one tip I can give you is to keep the e-mails short and to the point. Bullets even if there are specific points that you want to emphasize.

DD's girl scout leaders send long, rambling e-mails ("we're so excited to see our daisies on x date for x event, where we're going to do a, b, and c activities. And then this other thing another day where we'll begin our journey for earning the whatever patch by doing this random other thing out of a series of three other random things. Please make sure your daisy brings this one thing with them to our next meeting. Blah blah blah." It's very easy to miss that important detail when it's buried in a long paragraph about things I don't need to know.

It would be a lot easier if they sent an email that said something like "below is our schedule of events. Please make sure your child brings thing X on Tuesday." and then list all the unimportant info at the bottom.

[Anonymous]

Oops, I missed my closing parenthesis. You get the point...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love the posts from self-important parents complaining about writing styles, length of email, frequency, timing, etc. You must be the parent that shows up when school is closed for conferences, or better yet, failed to schedule one.

90% of my job is making decisions about my org's writing style, length of emails and other content, frequency, timing, style, formatting, etc. People like me get paid for this because it's a legitimate need. If you do it wrong, people don't read your stuff!

+1 Another comms/outreach person who 100% agrees. You can't send long emails, you need to get to the point. There's a reason BLUF is a thing. Bottom Line Up Front.