New Parent Orientation

I am the Director of a preschool program. Today was "New Parent Orientation". It is the time when parents come to a little meeting and I address the whole group and talk about policies, tuition, etc. I never really dread this day because I love, love, love talking in front of large groups of people. In my normal day to day life, I really don't like being the center of attention. But, give me a microphone, and I turn into a complete limelight stealing attention hog. At any rate, I never quite know what to expect from my "audience" which is basically made up of young moms and a few young dads. Sometimes when I am talking to them, they look at me like deers got in headlights. Other times, they nod like they are hearing what I am saying but I don't have a clue what they are thinking. Well, today I got a little bit of both. Quite frankly, it was a bit uncomfortable in the meeting at first. Don't get me wrong. I am not dissing my students' parents at all because coming to parent orientation can sometimes be the equivalent of going to the dentist and having teeth pulled. It can tend to be intimidating. Well, there I was rambling on about being on time, sending your child to school in tennis shoes, labeling everything, etc... And, I was getting absolutely no positive response at all. So, I had to resort to plan B. I began telling corny jokes about potty training, how kids tell their teachers all their family secrets, etc. Suddenly, the mood in the room changed. People began to lighten up and they were actually kind of giggling at my dumb jokes. At least, I think they were laughing at my dumb jokes...maybe, in hindsight, they were just laughing at me and not with me. Anyway, they were laughing and that is all that mattered. I think when I began talking about things that they all could relate to, they ,as a group, realized they were basically all in the same parenting boat together. How does all this relate to this women's studies class? Well, I think that women as a whole tend to question their parenting skills. Kids don't come with handy instruction manuals. You can't just flip the easy button and fix everything. Parenting is the most difficult job anyone can ever have. I think women feel like they have to be super moms 24/7. There is no perfection in parenting...only trial and error. Instead of tearing ourselves up about what we are doing wrong as moms, we need to congratulate ourselves on what we are doing right!