The Ugly Truth – The Start Of School

I want school to start now! I love my children. I really do, or I try to as much as possible. But two teenage daughters in the house all day all the time are exhausting. They argue all the time. It makes me want to pull my hair out of my head. We have been taking them to the beach, shopping, up north so they haven’t been just sitting around the house all day every day. So with the start of school I am secretly thinking

“YEEEAAAHHHHH!!!!!” but here’s the thing.

What is with those ridiculous lists?

Both of my high schoolers get charged a $95.00 athletic fee even though neither one of them do any sports. That is on top of their normal $30.00 school fee. So here’s what we have.

All these fees are mandatory

Athletic fee

$95.00 16-year-old

$95.00 14-year-old

School fees

$30.00 16-year-old

$30.00 14-year-old

$30.00 6-year-old

Then you get hit with all the art fees, club fees, this fee, that fee….Don’t they know that parents right now are struggling? Then the lists….oh GOODNESS the lists of items we have to get. My daughter who is in AP Math has to have a $100 calculator. WHAT? If you add up the costs of school supplies, school fees, school clothes it ends up costing families 10x what Christmas cost. According to Today.com and Investopedia.com, the average a parent spends per kid on Christmas $271.

A Yahoo report states that that the average elementary student spends per year around $649, middle school students $941 and for high school students it’s $1402. I have two high school kids and one elementary kid that adds up to $3453, and that’s not even including clothes! And out of all of those children  will lose 80% of those pricey supplies, lunch boxes and clothing.  43% will lose outerwear, 57% hats and gloves, 52% school supplies, 36% lunch boxes, and 14% backpacks.

My mother-in-law used to tell me how she used to cry every time summer ended and it was time to send her boys back to school. She said she hated to see them go. Well, now I call BS. I simply think she was crying because her bank account was now at $0.

But at least now when 7:35 am rolls around the house is quiet. There is no yelling, no Paw Patrol, Spongebob, and no Bubble Guppies blaring from the other room. I know for at least the next 8 hours there will peace and quiet.

Do I feel guilty for feeling this way?

ABSOLUTELY….NOT!

I love my children, but I need them to be at school and learn as much as they need to be at school and learn. Plus they need to get those big educations and go to big colleges to get big jobs to help pay me back when I’m old and need money myself.  So even though I go broke every single time they go back to school I’ll take it as the price I have to pay to have peace and quiet and a clean house for the 8 hours a day it’ll stay that way until the 3 tornadoes come back home.

And that my friends is the Ugly Truth

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