Car-Rider Chaos

How many of you drive your children to school or day care each day?  How many of you pick them up afterward?  How many of you want to strangle someone else in that drop-off or pick-up line each day?  Now is your chance to vent!

I hear it all the time from moms who are fed up with the parents who think they are above the rules and in-turn, mess up the entire drop-off line for everyone else.  Often times, this causes much road rage, anger, and a very crappy start to someone’s day. It always makes me think of the movie “Mr. Mom,” when Michael Keaton takes his kids to school for the first time and gets reprimanded by every mom in the line as they scream, “You’re doing it wrong!” And if memory serves me correctly, one mom even gives him the finger!

This year I have an amazing friend who drives my children to school almost every day. We are out of the school zone, which means the bus is not an option the way it was in my old neighborhood. Luckily, I only need to deal with the car-rider chaos line in the afternoons.

But, when I do have to drive my children to school, I have finally figured out the system. It took me a full year to realize that if I arrived at school at 7:38am, we were toast.  Line is long, long, long and we could quite possibly be there all day.  BUT, if I arrived at 7:37am, it was like a different world!  The teachers waved us into the school as if we were William and Kate arriving in our carriage with streets cleared for us and safety patrols patiently waiting to open our doors.  So, we now are always sure to leave our house in time to arrive before the dreaded 7:38am car cluster.

I do have to scowl though at the few parents who pull off on the main road and dump their children out there.  Why is it that they do not have to follow the rules and go through the line like everyone else?  I don’t care that your child is old enough to cross the street on his own.  It is #1 dangerous, #2 rude, and #3 if we all did what you did, it would be massive chaos!  Do you have a secret job or responsibility that is so much more important than ours?  Why must you stop nicely flowing traffic to let off your child in the middle of the street?  And why has no one of any authority even seen them do this and given them a lecture?

I have many more drop-off drama stories, but I will let you do the venting instead!  What’s your beef?