PTA again...urghhh

I’m not trying to launch a political career or anything, but now that my 3 kids are all in school full time, I’ve decided to join the PTA again at their school. I enjoy being involved in my children’s schools; my kids get so excited and feel so important when their mom is in charge of something, and I like the feeling of being a part of the community. But that being said, it’s not always easy to fit in the meetings, or to find the time for yet another responsibility. At our preschool, the Parents Association was pretty laid back. You did what you could, you came to the meetings you could make, and they were grateful to have any help at all. But at the "real" school, the PTA is run like the United States Army. Meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at 8:15am. Each committee is expected to give a brief and succinct report. Receipts must be turned in within thirty days. Unlike the harried mothers of two and three year-olds at the preschool, the grade school moms seem to be professional parent volunteers, and they take their jobs extremely seriously. The attitude is not one of gratitude, but rather, of expectation. As in, ask not what your school can do for you, but what you can do for your school. Or, to be more exact, as in, your child attends this school, and if you want your child to have a good experience here, then you’d better get off your lazy arse and pitch in, or else don’t even think about complaining. I’ll be honest: it’s more than a little intimidating.

But nonetheless, I enlisted. Well, okay, technically, I was recruited. At the end of last year, I was called by the former vice PTA President, who is now president, who explained that now that I have had practice for a year I should take on a committee chair again. I told him that I was slightly wary of committing to something like that, since I also have 3 kids' homework, a church commitment weekly, boy scouts, girl scouts, volleyball, karate, etc. But he assured me that the PTA was friendly towards busy moms. And I was like, well, that’s just fantastic. Here we go again....