Why do so many SAHMs insist on PTA or activity meetings during the school day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why won't they meet in the evenings or after the kids go to bed? Do your husband not allow it? Do you not trust them to be alone with the children? This has happened to me multiple times over the past several years where I've proposed meeting at 7pm or 8:30pm and they say they can't because it's dinner time, kids bedtime, they have so much to do. Please explain.

The trick is to live in a neighborhood where there aren't many SAHMs. Our PTA meetings are at 6 pm with childcare and pizza/drinks provided.

I feel like this would only work with really little kids who don’t do much for activities yet (maybe K-1st or so). Otherwise 6pm is absolute prime time for practices/activities for elementary schoolers- soccer practice, dance class etc. Usually those are not right after school (because most parents work) yet aren’t later in the evening either (due to kid age/bedtimes)….usually they ended up being over the dinner hour

Families often have two parents…

Yes we do. 2 parents and 3 kids. Zero chance either parent will be free at 6pm. We are lucky if both parents are even home from work by then- and then often juggling trying to get various kids to activities as it is. Craziest time of day at our house.

So it doesn’t sound like you could make a 10:30am PTA meeting either … the point is to pick a time that doesn’t exclude any sector entirely. Some families will not choose to participate in the formal PTA meetings which is fine. There are usually volunteer opportunities for you to participate at other times, or not at all, that’s cool. Or you just contribute money.

At our elementary the PTA fundraised quite a large amount of money. It would have been really inappropriate for transparency purposes to pick meeting times that excluded working parents ex ante, especially since they ALSO expected those parents to donate a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t want parents with jobs.

You can be upset about the disrespect and exclusion and your feelings will be valid.

Or

You can take it as a glorious get out of jail free card. You do not have to participate not because you were unwilling but— sigh— because you aren’t the target volunteer demographic. Do not volunteer, do not Venmo, and only go to the activities that actually appeal to you (or your kid) and don’t guilt free.

And if you’re ever — ever!— approached or guilted about it you just smile and say how glad you are that people have so much free time to donate to the (name the activity)

This. I feel entirely absolved of the guilt I once felt to be helpful. School volunteering is a SAHM show, and I scroll past anything the PTA has to say.

I find this astounding. Imagine women dismissing other women because you think you are above it all. Too bad if you scroll pass your kids may miss some activities because you are too busy being superior. Funny, if this was coming from a man we would say that's typical man dismissing a woman. But, it is really sad when women can't support other women. We are volunteering for the benefit of all the children! Even yours. A little appreication would be nice.

lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t want parents with jobs.

You can be upset about the disrespect and exclusion and your feelings will be valid.

Or

You can take it as a glorious get out of jail free card. You do not have to participate not because you were unwilling but— sigh— because you aren’t the target volunteer demographic. Do not volunteer, do not Venmo, and only go to the activities that actually appeal to you (or your kid) and don’t guilt free.

And if you’re ever — ever!— approached or guilted about it you just smile and say how glad you are that people have so much free time to donate to the (name the activity)

This. I feel entirely absolved of the guilt I once felt to be helpful. School volunteering is a SAHM show, and I scroll past anything the PTA has to say.

I find this astounding. Imagine women dismissing other women because you think you are above it all. Too bad if you scroll pass your kids may miss some activities because you are too busy being superior. Funny, if this was coming from a man we would say that's typical man dismissing a woman. But, it is really sad when women can't support other women. We are volunteering for the benefit of all the children! Even yours. A little appreication would be nice.

Meh. I was on the PTA board for years and still thought a lot of the activities were unnecessary. The most useful part was fundraising- our PTA funded all field trips, classroom supply budget for each teacher, and also certain software programs and equipment upgrades (new playground equipment and more). Things that were genuinely useful. Many parents were very happy to write a check in support, and honestly that was just as helpful (if not more) than sitting at PTA meetings or planning these little activities and whatnot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why won't they meet in the evenings or after the kids go to bed? Do your husband not allow it? Do you not trust them to be alone with the children? This has happened to me multiple times over the past several years where I've proposed meeting at 7pm or 8:30pm and they say they can't because it's dinner time, kids bedtime, they have so much to do. Please explain.

The trick is to live in a neighborhood where there aren't many SAHMs. Our PTA meetings are at 6 pm with childcare and pizza/drinks provided.

I feel like this would only work with really little kids who don’t do much for activities yet (maybe K-1st or so). Otherwise 6pm is absolute prime time for practices/activities for elementary schoolers- soccer practice, dance class etc. Usually those are not right after school (because most parents work) yet aren’t later in the evening either (due to kid age/bedtimes)….usually they ended up being over the dinner hour

Families often have two parents…

Yes we do. 2 parents and 3 kids. Zero chance either parent will be free at 6pm. We are lucky if both parents are even home from work by then- and then often juggling trying to get various kids to activities as it is. Craziest time of day at our house.

So it doesn’t sound like you could make a 10:30am PTA meeting either … the point is to pick a time that doesn’t exclude any sector entirely. Some families will not choose to participate in the formal PTA meetings which is fine. There are usually volunteer opportunities for you to participate at other times, or not at all, that’s cool. Or you just contribute money.

At our elementary the PTA fundraised quite a large amount of money. It would have been really inappropriate for transparency purposes to pick meeting times that excluded working parents ex ante, especially since they ALSO expected those parents to donate a lot.

Actually it was a lot easier to make time during the day- as long as we had notice. I went to some of the morning meetings when I could (right after drop off). DH was the parent who could attend things mid-day (works closer to school and could usually duck out if it was on the calendar).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my kids’ elementary, they tried evening meetings and not many came. They switched meetings to 8AM (school start time of 8AM) and had much better attendance. Working parents who wanted to attend would just start work late that day, and most SAHPs preferred it. They also live-streamed the meetings.

I didn’t have any say in scheduling, just saying how it worked at our school.

WOHM here. The right-around-drop-off meetings are by far the best for me personally. OP's proposed times of 7 and 8:30 pm are horrible because my kids are upper ES and MS and 7-9 is prime time in my house for activity drop offs/pick-ups, dinner, actually seeing my MSer and helping her with homework, etc.. My DH also travels a handful of days a month so it would be very hard for me to step away those evenings. Plus it's just late and I'm tired, ha!

I have enough flexibility and seniority at work, including some WFH days, that starting my work day a bit later a handful of days after an around-dropoff meeting is basically NBD.

OP don't assume that even WOHM want evening meetings, and certainly not ones as late as you are proposing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PTA shouldn’t even exist. In 2024 women shouldn’t be working for $0 for a school. The PTA takes advantage of unpaid female labor.

There's value you can get from doing something besides money. The faster we start recognizing that (for men and women), the better. As a society reducing everything to income - even if it's for the good goal of wage equality - is really hurting us in so many ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my kids’ elementary, they tried evening meetings and not many came. They switched meetings to 8AM (school start time of 8AM) and had much better attendance. Working parents who wanted to attend would just start work late that day, and most SAHPs preferred it. They also live-streamed the meetings.

I didn’t have any say in scheduling, just saying how it worked at our school.

WOHM here. The right-around-drop-off meetings are by far the best for me personally. OP's proposed times of 7 and 8:30 pm are horrible because my kids are upper ES and MS and 7-9 is prime time in my house for activity drop offs/pick-ups, dinner, actually seeing my MSer and helping her with homework, etc.. My DH also travels a handful of days a month so it would be very hard for me to step away those evenings. Plus it's just late and I'm tired, ha!

I have enough flexibility and seniority at work, including some WFH days, that starting my work day a bit later a handful of days after an around-dropoff meeting is basically NBD.

OP don't assume that even WOHM want evening meetings, and certainly not ones as late as you are proposing.

Another WOHM and I also can do right-around-drop-off meetings. Our PTO offers those plus an evening Zoom to try and capture as many people as possible. I find evening in-person horrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t want parents with jobs.

You can be upset about the disrespect and exclusion and your feelings will be valid.

Or

You can take it as a glorious get out of jail free card. You do not have to participate not because you were unwilling but— sigh— because you aren’t the target volunteer demographic. Do not volunteer, do not Venmo, and only go to the activities that actually appeal to you (or your kid) and don’t guilt free.

And if you’re ever — ever!— approached or guilted about it you just smile and say how glad you are that people have so much free time to donate to the (name the activity)

This. I feel entirely absolved of the guilt I once felt to be helpful. School volunteering is a SAHM show, and I scroll past anything the PTA has to say.

I find this astounding. Imagine women dismissing other women because you think you are above it all. Too bad if you scroll pass your kids may miss some activities because you are too busy being superior. Funny, if this was coming from a man we would say that's typical man dismissing a woman. But, it is really sad when women can't support other women. We are volunteering for the benefit of all the children! Even yours. A little appreication would be nice.

These are women intentionally excluding other women, though. No one needs to listen to them.

If your PTA doesn’t flex the schedule so working parents can participate, you are “dismissing” those women’s contributions. Why should they then care about yours?

[Anonymous]

Typically I’ve found that SAHMs have terrible husbands. They’re unable to put kids to bed (even in elementary), can’t feed them dinner, can’t run bath times. So yeah, they can’t make pta meetings at night because they have to do all of that at night. And sure some SAHMs have great husbands, the majority are like I describe. I’m not sure if it’s that they never made their husband do any work or they married a dud and that’s why they had to sah.

As a working mom, I would prefer pta meetings during the day, but wish for them to be online Teams meetings. Why can’t I just call in during my work day?? 10am seems to be the common time and I don’t understand why. If anything it should be immediately after school starts. Why do I need to drop my kid off at 8am and then go back 2 hours later? 8-9am would be ideal because then I could still go to work at a normal time.

[Anonymous]

I truly think the pta should be abolished. I don’t agree with anything they do. Even the fundraising. We shouldn’t have to fundraiser for needed improvements. The school board is spending millions on tech contracts or lawyers because they’re being sued by special needs parents. Cut some of that out and we’d have ample money for our schools. The money is there, it’s just not being allocated correctly.

I also don’t like fundraising for teacher lunches. Why?? Only pink collar jobs try to reward their employees this way. It’s frankly insulting to teachers I think. Teachers would rather you fix school problems than give them a free baked potato.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly think the pta should be abolished. I don’t agree with anything they do. Even the fundraising. We shouldn’t have to fundraiser for needed improvements. The school board is spending millions on tech contracts or lawyers because they’re being sued by special needs parents. Cut some of that out and we’d have ample money for our schools. The money is there, it’s just not being allocated correctly.

I also don’t like fundraising for teacher lunches. Why?? Only pink collar jobs try to reward their employees this way. It’s frankly insulting to teachers I think. Teachers would rather you fix school problems than give them a free baked potato.

Yeah. If teaching were a male- dominated profession they’d talk about performance bonuses, instead they decorate doors and get chik-fil-a to donate sandwiches. It’s pretty appalling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t want parents with jobs.

You can be upset about the disrespect and exclusion and your feelings will be valid.

Or

You can take it as a glorious get out of jail free card. You do not have to participate not because you were unwilling but— sigh— because you aren’t the target volunteer demographic. Do not volunteer, do not Venmo, and only go to the activities that actually appeal to you (or your kid) and don’t guilt free.

And if you’re ever — ever!— approached or guilted about it you just smile and say how glad you are that people have so much free time to donate to the (name the activity)

This. I feel entirely absolved of the guilt I once felt to be helpful. School volunteering is a SAHM show, and I scroll past anything the PTA has to say.

I find this astounding. Imagine women dismissing other women because you think you are above it all. Too bad if you scroll pass your kids may miss some activities because you are too busy being superior. Funny, if this was coming from a man we would say that's typical man dismissing a woman. But, it is really sad when women can't support other women. We are volunteering for the benefit of all the children! Even yours. A little appreication would be nice.

These are women intentionally excluding other women, though. No one needs to listen to them.

If your PTA doesn’t flex the schedule so working parents can participate, you are “dismissing” those women’s contributions. Why should they then care about yours?

Those women don’t show up anyway. If they can’t make an after school drop off meeting I’m sure they’ll find reasons 6, 7, 8pm don’t work either. Priorities. If people want to meet to plan frivolous events, let them. Is anyone really dying to get in on that? If they send around a signup genius to work an event, donate time then, or just write a check, or just do nothing. It doesn’t really matter in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my kids’ elementary, they tried evening meetings and not many came. They switched meetings to 8AM (school start time of 8AM) and had much better attendance. Working parents who wanted to attend would just start work late that day, and most SAHPs preferred it. They also live-streamed the meetings.

I didn’t have any say in scheduling, just saying how it worked at our school.

WOHM here. The right-around-drop-off meetings are by far the best for me personally. OP's proposed times of 7 and 8:30 pm are horrible because my kids are upper ES and MS and 7-9 is prime time in my house for activity drop offs/pick-ups, dinner, actually seeing my MSer and helping her with homework, etc.. My DH also travels a handful of days a month so it would be very hard for me to step away those evenings. Plus it's just late and I'm tired, ha!

I have enough flexibility and seniority at work, including some WFH days, that starting my work day a bit later a handful of days after an around-dropoff meeting is basically NBD.

OP don't assume that even WOHM want evening meetings, and certainly not ones as late as you are proposing.

Same. When my kids were in ES, at least for a while, I remember them alternating betwen morning and evening and despite being a working mom, I was more likely to attend the morning ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Typically I’ve found that SAHMs have terrible husbands. They’re unable to put kids to bed (even in elementary), can’t feed them dinner, can’t run bath times. So yeah, they can’t make pta meetings at night because they have to do all of that at night. And sure some SAHMs have great husbands, the majority are like I describe. I’m not sure if it’s that they never made their husband do any work or they married a dud and that’s why they had to sah.

As a working mom, I would prefer pta meetings during the day, but wish for them to be online Teams meetings. Why can’t I just call in during my work day?? 10am seems to be the common time and I don’t understand why. If anything it should be immediately after school starts. Why do I need to drop my kid off at 8am and then go back 2 hours later? 8-9am would be ideal because then I could still go to work at a normal time.

You mean they have high earning husbands that have demanding jobs, hence why they make a lot money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly think the pta should be abolished. I don’t agree with anything they do. Even the fundraising. We shouldn’t have to fundraiser for needed improvements. The school board is spending millions on tech contracts or lawyers because they’re being sued by special needs parents. Cut some of that out and we’d have ample money for our schools. The money is there, it’s just not being allocated correctly.

I also don’t like fundraising for teacher lunches. Why?? Only pink collar jobs try to reward their employees this way. It’s frankly insulting to teachers I think. Teachers would rather you fix school problems than give them a free baked potato.

Agree. Which is why I won’t vote for higher taxes. Not giving more money so it can be squandered. PTA does zero to increase education. If parents really want to make an impact on education, fill in a substitute teacher in the district or volunteer as a reading/math tutor.