Money Can Buy Time

It comes up every now and then in conversations, but other moms will ask me why I chose the school my children are at. The simple answer? Time. My kids go to school three days a week, it's a private school, and I pay for it. The school has other fundamentally good things about it, but my answer has remained the same for years - I relish the extra time I get with my kids, even if I'm paying for it.

I can't call it a regret because it wasn't my decision to make, but I still get worked up when I think about all the years my mother had to go to treatment in Houston and didn't take us with her because we had to go to school. Perhaps it was the "must follow directions" cultural training from her upbringing. I always resent the fact that they didn't try harder to make accommodations or do something differently. It was just a straightforward, "You've got to go to school and do your homework. We can't take you."

4th grade was the worst. They went so many times that year. I so badly wanted time with my mother, even if it meant waiting in a hospital hallway because I was too young to go inside the treatment room. Each night before they left, I'd practically beg them to wake me up the next morning and take me with them. They lied to me and said they would. I went to sleep. The next morning, I'd wake up at 7 am to a dark, empty house. I'm still traumatized thinking about it. 

This shaped the way I viewed my kids' educations. When my oldest was preparing for kindergarten, public school was basically eliminated because they didn't offer anything less than a full day. I had known this was coming. The first year of the district's full-day kindergarten was the 2008-2009 school year.  I always told myself, if my kids ended up in public school, they would be allowed to miss school whenever they felt like it and I'd be completely supportive. Now, don't get me wrong, this is with the assumption that they are exceeding grade level standards and completing their homework responsibly. I'm not condoning this for someone with a student who isn't meeting standards. And, knowingly, this would end once they reached the middle school and high school years. 

The old adage is: money can't buy time. I'm here to tell you it can, and we do it all the time without thinking about it. I'm buying time by paying for my kids' educations to have two home school days per week. This is two more days they would have with me than if they went to public school. We buy time when we pick up fast food because our children are hangry instead of waiting to drive home and grabbing something from the freezer or refrigerator at home to heat up or cook. We buy time when we purchase pre-peeled garlic instead of buying the heads because we don't have to stand there and peel the cloves one at a time. We buy time when we pay for a housekeeper or lawn maintenance so we can do other things with our time in lieu of cleaning or mowing. We buy time when we pay the premium at Disney for Lightning Lane passes instead of waiting in the "regular" line. 

Now, bottomline, nobody is adding extra hours or days to their life by spending any money. If we could, we would all go broke. Probably every single person alive would be going broke buying more time for themselves or for someone they loved. But, we buy time in our own ways. We buy time every single day, most likely, without even realizing. It's been labeled as convenience. 

I can't say how long we will stay at our current school. Things may change years from now and we may switch back to public school or a different school. But for the next couple of years, this is what I need. This is what I want. And I will savor the time I've "bought."

Last Hurrah: Berries!

I found out about a pick-your-own strawberry farm near us many years ago. They only open three days a week - Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Because of their popularity, I never made the nearly 1.5 hour drive over because everything was posted on social media. I was not going to risk waking up early, driving over, only to be turned away because they had to close due to capacity. Over the years, my kids grew, each strawberry season came and went, and we never visited this farm.

This year, my daughter's school is already 25-30 minutes away from our home. The school is somewhat on the way to the strawberry farm. One week, I saw posts from this strawberry farm about which days were going to be great picks. I had almost decided to take my son strawberry picking when I realized I wasn't sure if there would be a bathroom available at the farm. It's true, I could have driven to somewhere nearby to use the restroom if needed before and after going to the farm, but that would be more work and an extra stop on the way. In the end, I decided not to.

The following week on Tuesday, I saw the social media posts again saying it would be a great pick with many ripe berries in the fields the next day. I was contemplating taking my son again, but this time, I decided to reach out to the farm and ask if they had a bathroom or portapotty on the premises. The next morning, I got the reply from the farm - they did! 

I made a somewhat last-minute decision to take my son to pick strawberries after dropping off my daughter at school. I packed up his homework, we put on our rain boots, and we set off for school.

After I dropped of my daughter off, we drove the remaining 50 minutes to the strawberry farm from the school. We arrived at 9:30 am. The parking lot was open but the farm itself didn't open until 10 am. This was fine because my son had homework to finish in the car before I'd let him go pick strawberries. He finished around 9:50 and then we got our stuff and went in. I asked if we could use the restrooms first even though the field wasn't opened yet and she said we could. They were clean! Yay! The last time I encountered one this clean was when we were at a park in Maine. 

My little guy and I bought a basket and then proceeded to walk about halfway back into the field to start picking strawberries. They say the best strawberries are located next to the mud. They're not kidding. Rain boots were an absolute must because we got muddy. 

Muddy fields. Yay. 

He and I proceeded to pick almost 5 pounds of strawberries. I have no doubt they'll be gone within a week. 

 

We had so much fun. At least, I had so much fun. On the 75 minute drive home, I did a lot of thinking. I felt really happy having taken my son out to pick strawberries. And I was so excited to be bringing back a whole bucket of red berries. Did it take forever to drive there? Yea, kind of. Were these the most expensive strawberries I've ever purchased in my life? Yup. But life is about going on adventures and making memories. As great as free activities are (don't get me wrong, there's plenty of free activites out there!), sometimes, it's worth paying some money, sometimes even a premium, to be able to do something you normally wouldn't do. 

At dinner, my daughter enjoyed the strawberries so much she wanted to keep eating. My husband had to tell her to stop so that she could save some for her brother...hehe. I asked him later why he didn't just wash some more strawberries for the kids to eat. 😂 After all I did buy nearly 5 pounds... 

I've homeschooled my son for the last two years. Next year, I'm sending him off to first grade. How is my youngest going to first grade? How is my Covid baby six years old? I have no idea. I've loved being able to keep him with me these last two years and have a buddy to go run errands and eat lunch with at home. He's super excited to go to school next year, and honestly, I'm excited for him. 

I made the drive out for this adventure with him as a way to round out our last year together at home full-time. I can't wait for him to go to school and make new friends and have recess. But I'll miss my little buddy. 🩷 

1,288 Words

My dad and I have probably the best relationship with each other now than we've ever had in my life since adolescence. I'm excluding childhood because I honestly don't remember what my relationship with him was like, although there are photos of him holding me and I look genuinely joyful. If you knew me well in my teenage and early adult years, you would have known that my dad and I were basically roommates living under the same roof. He worked to earn money, cooked our food, and paid the bills so we had somewhere safe to live and chauffeured us to places we needed to me. When I got my driver's license at 16, his chauffeuring duties ended, but the other roles remained. During my years in college, his cooking services were less necessary because I ate in the dining halls or cooked for myself during the year I lived in an apartment. After I graduated, I moved overseas for a year, and it was the first time I paid for everything by myself or had it arranged for me through my company - housing, food, and transportation.

After moving back home one year later, I lived at home for a year before getting married and moving out of my dad's house again - this time, permanently. During all these years, we didn't talk to each other. Our personalities really clash with each other. My dad doesn't really understand implications, and if he does, he doesn't show it. He takes a lot of things at face value, probably a large reason why he was so good at math and science. You can't assume in these fields. You prove it, or you see it. Compounded on top of adolescence and a growing desire for independence, not to mention the lack of a true foundational relationship during childhood, I was left with a very shaky pile of rocks called the "foundation" of our relationship. I've written about the epitome, arguably what was the catalyst to the breaking point of our relationship. 

For a long time, I didn't really want a relationship with my dad. I wanted not to need him because needing him felt harder than not needing him. I could take care of myself and be self-sufficient. Honestly, that was easy. Needing him? That felt like dead weight. So I forced myself not to. I found a way to do everything I could by myself. 

I get sad writing about this.  It's probably because I have my own children now. It's probably because I'm getting older and I'm not that young and fearless twenty-one-year-old anymore freshly out of college.  The older I get the more valuable time becomes. I say it like I'm dying, and to my knowledge I'm not, but it's true. Our time is shorter as we get older. And because of that, its value increases. I already know how valuable time is because I've experienced how short it can be with the time I had my mother. My daughter is one year away from being the age I was when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I can still picture myself in her hospital room when she was first diagnosed being oblivious to what was going on and enamored by the beef broth powder I could add to hot water and sip on. And now, I'm the mother who could at any time be the one given a diagnosis with a definite time to live. I digress.

Things with my dad got better after I had kids. Better in the sense that we visited a little more so he could see the kids. I don't think we truly started having a relationship with each other until the last 1-2 years. It's weird thinking about it that way, like the daughter he once had suddenly went from being a little girl to someone in her mid thirties. And the father I once had suddenly went from being the invincible male figure who (I thought) could type at lightning fast speeds (he doesn't) to the gray-haired, balding, fragile person who has slowed his pace when he walks.  

He and I got into a big fight a few years back. I don't approve of his life choices and certain decisions he makes. I realize they are out of my control because he is the one making his decisions, but his decision-making capabilities are diminishing and I am trying to intercede for him to assist. You won't believe what our fight was about: plastic bags. I kid you not there are probably hundreds if not thousands of plastic bags (plastic shopping t-shirt bags) in his house bagged inside of each other and thrown in various closets, strewn in hallways, shoved on shelves. I told him he needed to get rid of them to keep things tidier and not have everything in such a mess because it's a tripping hazard for him and it reduces the space for him to walk and get around his own house. He didn't listen. He actually got angry at me and yelled, "You don't know how I grew up."

He's right, I don't know how he grew up. And honestly, I have no idea what he meant by that statement. Maybe he grew up with clutter and he doesn't mind. Maybe he's used to it after so long and doesn't care. 

I was angry. I was very, very angry. And I yelled back at him.

"You don't know what it's like not to have a mother."

My grandmother was alive when my dad and I had this argument. My dad, a man in his seventies, still had a living mother, whereas I was without one at 13 and had spent over 20 years grieving already. I don't know if my dad understood the full implication of my statement. No, my dad did not know what it was like to lose a mother yet. But he also did not understand what it was like to watch someone else take over the house my mother spent her last days in. To trash the things she didn't want regardless of what it was. To leave the house in such disarray and mess. To buy things endlessly and stash them all over the place, never to be used. To shamelessly throw away my mother's photograph and expect no consequence or fault. 

Since this argument with my dad, things got better - my relationship with him, that is, not the condition of his living space. When I say we have the best relationship we've ever had, the bar is still very low. This means we have conversations with each other about everyday things. I tell him about the new grocery store I went to. I tell him about the piano competition my student placed in. I tell him about which days my kids get off from school. We have lunch together and I bring food I cooked. He tells me about his doctor appointments for his health ailments. He tells me about a restaurant he ate at. It's mundane. But it's the best we've ever had. 

My grandmother, my last living grandparent, died this week. We've always lived halfway across the world from each other so I never really knew her as a person. My entire family went to go see her last year, and that would be the last time we would see her. She lived almost twice the years my mother had on this earth. We are going back again this year, but my grandmother won't be there. I know this visit will feel different. I know it will be different. 

My dad can now begin to glimpse what I've already known. I am sad for him.