Dear Carolyn: My son is in kindergarten. We also have a 3-year-old who will attend the same school.
This spring, my son’s school is having a large fundraiser event. I have a lot of problems with this as a very concept. I don’t think schools should have to fundraise for things they need, and I resent being asked to participate with our limited funds and time. I feel the only reason these things exist is because people do them, so I don’t want to participate at all.
My husband thinks this is a ridiculous stance to take, and thinks the goals of the fundraiser are beneficial for the kids, so he is taking part without me. This bothers me quite a bit, and I am looking at roughly 18 years in this school district.
How do I handle this without compromising my ideals?
— Not Fundraising
Not Fundraising: These fundraisers exist because schools are underfunded. And I say this agreeing with you 100 percent that “schools should [not] have to fundraise for things they need.” It’s a cultural embarrassment that teachers routinely pay out of pocket for things, but they do, and the remedy of voting in more education-friendly governments is a slow, long-term, macro solution to a micro problem that affects your kids today.
So, what are schools and parents supposed to do? They lobby their local boards and state and federal education departments, but kids need stuff — now — that the budgets don’t cover. So parents come up with ways to raise cash.
Some people don’t resent it, aren’t as pressed for time and have some money they can spare. I can’t see how it’s better to leave that resource untapped to avoid annoying you, when instead you can choose to ignore the fundraising appeals.
You don’t have to provide any of that cash personally, especially if you don’t have it to spare, but even if you do. An invitation is not a dunning notice. Just RSVP no for the next 18 years and you have no further obligation even to think about it.
Your husband, meanwhile, is free to attend for all 18 years if that honors his beliefs. Seems to me you’re already at a workable solution to the problem, if you’ll just accept it as such.
See below if you’re not comfortable with his giving money unilaterally:
Re: “Dunning notices”: It’s also perfectly acceptable to give to the school in other ways. I volunteered re-shelving books once a week in my son’s middle school library. While for obvious peri-teen reasons he wasn’t eager to see me in the library, he also was clearly proud that I was there, telling his friends, etc. It also strengthened our connection, because I could meet and then chat with him about the people who populated this significant slice of his daily life. Far more satisfying than wrapping paper/candy sales/galas/etc.
— Volunteer
Volunteer: This is great, and “peri-teen” gives me a little word-nerd crush.
Re: “Peri-teen”: I think she meant “preteen.”
