Is it too soon to moan about school-created Mother's Day cards?
A bonus entry/whinge about creativity and woeful lack thereof
It feels a bit uncharitable to vent this soon after Mother’s Day, but I woke up with an uneasy feeling this morning and I shall tell you why.
Here are the cards I received yesterday from the boys. They both made them at school, the undisputed home of crafts-for-annual-remembrance-days.
At face value, they are cute and colourful. The messages inside were lovely, Willis in particular tried really hard. Beren is 11 and currently exploring the depths of minimal effort.
So what are my issues? Well…
I bristled in a well-conditioned English manner to the choice of a template with ‘mom’ instead of ‘mum’. I mean, seriously? There must be a billion Mother’s Day colouring-in templates on the internet. Can we please try harder, teachers?
I baulked at the pages of structured ‘fill in the gaps’ activities in the bottom one, clearly leading kids to share with their mothers all the ways they know, love and appreciate them. Except, it was a huge set-up. Beren made some guesses at my favourite flower, colour, animal etc - but like most 11 year olds boys he clearly had no idea. The most upsetting section was a list of ‘five fascinating things about your mum’. Beren chose to record for posterity that I’m fascinating because I have a home job and buy him food. Humph.
I was sucker-punch upset by the lovely artwork that Willis brought home on Friday and did not try to hide. This, he told me, was not for Mother’s Day. Ah well, it is a beautiful piece. He felt really proud of it, but then wilted when I praised his flowerpot collage. Shoulders slumped, he said the relief teacher had told him he did it wrong and hadn’t followed instructions. Wtf.
Where has art in schools gone?!
This year’s Mother’s Day offerings were part of the 9,000,000+ results you can browse by entering “Free printable Mothers Day cards to colour” into Google.
Do mothers like this stuff? I feel completely unconvinced that these templates please anyone except relief teachers.
I would have liked my kids to create something of their own, not show me how good they are at colouring within the lines. I would have liked my kids to not be chastised for thinking laterally about the colour of a flowerpot. I would have liked my kids to not fill in the blanks about me, but instead think a little harder about why I mean something to them.
Other than being a little salty about the crap cards, it was a nice day. If you got a card yesterday, feel free to tell me about it.
Michelle x
Word! Also, I'd like to agree the collage is fantastic.
My child had to to write about why her mum was the best in the world, but didn't bring it home because she wasn't pleased with the outcome, didn't win the in-class competition, and couldn't think of good answers to the prompt that were technically correct. 'It's not like you're a Prime Minister or film star.'