The Real Paris

When our first born was old enough my wife, Christine, and I decided to send him to a private school. There are two reasons why parents would want their kid to attend a private school.

1. You come from a wealthy family, and you went to a private school yourself, and you want the same experience for your kids.

2. You come from a middle class family and were bullied relentlessly in public school and don't want the same experience for your kids.

Both Christine and I heralded from the latter, she having endured both middle and high school run by her town. While it was awful for both of us, it was particularly bad for Christine. When we learned about a private school which emphasized the arts in our town, we were certain that the place would be staffed by avant guard former pot smoking hippies from the 60's who would nourish our son's creative side. That's not necessarily what we got. Instead the staff was more interested in doping up the boys with Ritalin due to their inability to sit still. Since a private school doesn't have to take your child, they're quick to deem them "a problem" especially when doing so covers for their inability to effectively teach.

All the state mandates, thrust upon public schools, which my conservative side initially shunned guides the staff on how to effectively educate fidgety boys without drugs. Meanwhile our private school was trapped in the old ways of teaching like math bees and round robin reading which was ejected from the public school system years ago as studies proved that these techniques provided the least benefit to the students most in need. There was a lot of odd things that occurred over the five years Aidan spent in the private school before we took him out. One of strangest involved scones and Paris.


In my son's class once per semester parents signed up for Family Food Day. This was a day in which the parents brought in their favorite meal for the students and teachers. I think the staff liked Family Food Day most of all since kids are typically happy with simple chow like microwaveable mac and cheese. Anyway, Christine's family food was scones. She makes the perfect scone, and she knows where to get clotted cream and real strawberry jam. If you're not British and don't know what clotted cream is it's a spread made from milk with steam. Several of Aidan's teachers were Brits so scones on Family Food Day was a tall order. Clotted cream, also known as Devonshire cream, was a must have for her Family Food Day.


Whatever went on each week in my son's class was written up and emailed to all the parents. I was certain Christine's scones would make the front page of the weekly classroom activities. When the flyer arrived top billing was given to a mother who had come into the classroom to tell the kindergarteners of her trip to Paris. Christine's scones didn't even make the cut. I asked Aidan about it, and he said,

"Yeah, Dean's mom went to Paris."

As I read the article it was clear that Dean didn't go on the trip nor did Dean's dad. In fact Dean's parents were recently divorced, and Dean's mom went to Paris with her new boyfriend, Steve, who was left out of the article, thankfully. I didn't grow up with a lot of parental guidance, but somewhere in my upbringing I learned that a trip to Paris with someone other than one's spouse was not kindergarten fodder. In fact retelling such a story to a bunch of kids is, how we say, gauche. Aidan elaborated on Dean's mom's trip to Paris.

"She told us she ate a bunny while in Paris," Aidan explained.

I'm sure that wasn't all Dean's mom ate in Paris.

"I told her that I went to Paris," Aidan naively offered.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"That she went to the real Paris. Not the one in Epcot," Aidan recalled.

"Did you tell her you went to the Louvre?" I asked.

"Yeah, she said, 'The Louvre isn't in Florida,'" Aidan recalled.

Aidan asked me why Dean didn't get to go to Paris too. What was I going to tell him?
 

"Well Aidan, Steve wanted to play hide the baguette with Dean's mom, and she told him if he wanted to do that he would have to take her to Paris first."

Actually I told him that Dean couldn't get time off of work.

"He's in kindergarten. He doesn't have a job," Aidan responded.

For a moment I imagined Dean crawling under a loom to change the bobbins as his mother jetted off to Paris with her boyfriend.

Outside the Louvre

Although Christine got a lot of compliments concerning her scones from Aidan's teachers, even the British subjects, to this day I can't imagine why these people thought it was a good idea to write up a divorced woman's trip to Paris with her boyfriend and skip my wife's baking. I thought perhaps Dean's mom might have suggested the idea, and the teachers tried to let the whole thing pass unnoticed. Oh no! They put it in the weekly mailing with top billing. The title of the article should have been,

Dean's Mom Has Sex with Boyfriend in Paris
 

with the subtitle,


Christine's Scones Are "Passable" Says British Teacher.

We left that private school a short time later. I guess in the end we just didn't fit in.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on January 19, 2017.