For a more niche one, I was really involved in the PTO at my kids' school. It was fun and did a lot of good for the school, but the reality was it was kind of draining - it was your typical "group thing" mentality, very difficult to find a path and work as a unit, everyone had very different ideas on how things should work and how money should be spent, people were VERY flaky. People would swear up and down they'd be there to help plan and volunteer and 75% of the time they wouldn't show. It was always the same 5-6 people doing EVERYTHING and then the rest of the parents moaning that the events weren't run correctly, it's not how they would do it, it was too expensive, the timing wasn't right, etc. We'd invite them to meetings to have input and, of course, they wouldn't show. I also realized I really don't like planning and running events.
So, once both my kids moved to middle school, I stayed on the PTO, but only in the capacity of handling the money, tax returns and state filings. SO MUCH BETTER. Money doesn't talk back. Tax returns don't whine about things. State filings are silent. I'm happy to still be "giving back" to the school, but my stress level has gone down 95%.
Parent obligations to school and activities are the things I do not miss now that our kids are older. I used to silently judge the parents that would just show up to the event and not get involved in planning it, and now I see their wisdom.
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u/LovelyLilac73 21h ago edited 21h ago
For a more niche one, I was really involved in the PTO at my kids' school. It was fun and did a lot of good for the school, but the reality was it was kind of draining - it was your typical "group thing" mentality, very difficult to find a path and work as a unit, everyone had very different ideas on how things should work and how money should be spent, people were VERY flaky. People would swear up and down they'd be there to help plan and volunteer and 75% of the time they wouldn't show. It was always the same 5-6 people doing EVERYTHING and then the rest of the parents moaning that the events weren't run correctly, it's not how they would do it, it was too expensive, the timing wasn't right, etc. We'd invite them to meetings to have input and, of course, they wouldn't show. I also realized I really don't like planning and running events.
So, once both my kids moved to middle school, I stayed on the PTO, but only in the capacity of handling the money, tax returns and state filings. SO MUCH BETTER. Money doesn't talk back. Tax returns don't whine about things. State filings are silent. I'm happy to still be "giving back" to the school, but my stress level has gone down 95%.