Thursday, November 11, 2010

Quarterly Evaluations

I recently did the mandatory mid-semester evaluations of my Freshmen and, last year, went through tenure review.  Odd that parenting is a completely unreviewed endeavour. 
I imagine a bureaucrat-heavy panel of bespectacled parenting critics interviewing parents quarterly to assess progress. . . .
[insert brief swirl of harp music and add misted edges to the scene below]

Panelist [pushing glasses up nose]: So, Dr. R, how do you enrich your son's life?
Me: Well, we go to the public library a lot.  And I make him eat butternut squash.
Panelist: Does he enjoy these activities?
Me [shifting uncomfortably]: Urh.  No.  Not really.  I mean, maybe the squash sometimes.
Panelist [sternly]: Do you do anything with him that he enjoys?
Me [relieved]: Yes!  I take him to that gas station on the corner, the only one in the world where you still have to go inside to pay even if you're using a debit card, and let the nice Indian man (he is Indian, I asked) give him a lollipop.
Panelist [more sternly]:  At 8 in the morning?  Are you aware the lollipops at the gas station are full of corn syrup and red dye?  Are you trying to ruin his teeth?  Have you nothing better you could do with him?

Sigh. 

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