June

A popular third-grade teacher at Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School, has been placed on administrative leave after a school-owned camera in his possession was found to contain inappropriate pictures of a young boy. School officials notified parents of the incident in a June 12 letter that said, "The teacher was immediately placed on administrative leave, escorted from Beauvoir that afternoon, and did not participate in any of the closing chapel activities". Discussion of the incident has been raging in the DC Urban Moms and Dads discussion forum since a June 16 posting asking for specifics about what had happened.

While school officials have attempted to be proactive in providing information to the Beauvoir community (distributing letters on June 12, June 19, and June 20), many DCUM posters have complained that Beauvoir has not gone far enough. Anonymous posters have passed on information that has ranged from insider knowledge to simple gossip. The debate has grown to encompass many aspects including accusations that the school prioritized guarding its reputation over the protection of children, that Beauvoir was conspiring with the Washington Post to keep the story out of the newspaper, and that forum users themselves were acting as a lynch mob.

Last night my family sat down around our dinner table and enjoyed a nourishing, home-cooked meal while we lovingly and supportively talked about our respective days. But then I woke up. As I rolled over in bed -- onto the soggy, half-eaten Teddy Graham that made up the “grains” portion of my four-year-old’s dinner -- I checked off yet another mark on my robust maternal guilt list:  Our family dinner hour masquerades as the family drive-thru 10 minutes.

I think I feel guilty because I grew up with an unrealistic model of domestic bliss, a family in which Mom served a piping hot meal every night out of a magically uncluttered kitchen and Dad eagerly cleared the table. No, not my parents: The Brady Bunch. Carol and Mike really screwed the rest of us -- no nut allergies or aversions to leafy greens in their perky little blended family. No one in the Brady family ever flung themselves to the kitchen floor in the throes of a tantrum, screaming, “Not grilled-cheese sandwiches again!” (Which, I confess, I did just the other night).