When Weston rushed out of preschool Monday, he proudly held up a small Dr. Seuss book and called, "Look, Mom, a free book from the government!"
Today, I picked him up, and again, he arrived bearing another "government" book. I queried his teacher, and she told me the kids would be getting a free book every day this week--thanks big brother.
Free books must be one of the many perks of attending a Title I elementary school. For those of you without kids or with kids in public schools with some level of economic base or even worse with kids in elite private schools (or homogeneous charter schools), you are missing out on a classic education experience. This experience includes such amazing benefits as
- Getting state grants for "take home" fruit and veggies that elementary kids can throw at dogs, fences, and each other on their walk home from school
- Being supplied with extra computers in the computer lab that the gangster-in-training children use to type new and inventive curses until the lab gets shut down as a punishment
- Having rich neighborhoods a few miles away decide to do sub-for-Santa for the poor folk, shipping all of their second hand, Salvation Army rejects(like unwashed used socks)to our neighborhood. Then we have the fun of discarding it for them (since no one must work in our neighborhood anyway) and then buy real presents for needy families
Of course, I am grateful for our free book today, a coloring book with bubbles attached. Weston promptly blew bubbles into Grace's eyes, making her shriek and rip the book--all in all, money well spent.
But to give the mysterious government book donor credit, in these tough economic times, it's the little things that give us hope. Tonight, for example, I plan on working on one of those little things, taxes. Every year no matter how little we earn, we always owe additional taxes to the state. Even the year I got laid off, Allen had just graduated and was job hunting, and we earned the equivalent of a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, we sent off a fat check to the state of Utah. This year, however, I'm feeling pretty good about paying those taxes because I know that even though they will be used to bail out banks, car companies, and other businesses that have been poorly managed and sucked dry by greedy managers, my family will always have those free books.
7 comments:
Well stated, and very enjoyable.
Quinn
As a parent at a Title 1 school, I finally had to tell my kids to stop bringing home the freebies. We don't need bread or books or free polos (we are a uniform school). Its been a good learning experience for my kids. They play and interact with and are friends with many children that skirt the poverty level. I hope that they will walk away truly knowing how lucky and blessed they are and I hope that it is a lesson your children will be able to appreciate too.
I get government handouts every day just by showing up to work...
Janell, you are so right. My kids are more accepting, generous, and concerned about others because of their experiences in our area.
Ahhh, taxes. Wasn't it Ben Franklin that said "The only thing you can count on in this life is death and taxes" ...? Lisa and I just did our taxes and found we owe the Beehive State some money too. Maybe if we all become politicians we can get away without paying them.
Matt-
Yeah the delightful state government took away the tax write off for Liam being autistic so guess we owe a chunk to the state even though we had a baby, an autistic child, make very little money and claimed half the number of dependents we could've claimed on our W2. Fun stuff.
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