the "unsubscribe" bitchfest heard 'round the homeschool listserv

A close friend of mine signed up for a Nashville homeschooling listserv about two years ago, but ultimately decided not to homeschool her kids. The emails from the listserv were clogging up her inbox, and since she wasn't using the information, she wanted to unsubscribe.

This was nothing against the group or the people in it. Because she never read the emails, she was unfamiliar with the proper way to unsubscribe, other than what some other people had done, which was to send an "unsubscribe" email to the entire list. Unbenownst to her, this would create an online unsubscriber-bashing meleé.

Friend: Unsubscribe. Thanks!

Jacki (list manager, who ends all her posts with "peace within, peace between, peace among"): Unsubscribing info is in the footer of each and every email you receive from the list, just follow the directions. I've copied and pasted them here for you.
Jacki
List mom (but not list slave)

T.H.F.: Wow. How rude. I will now unsubscribe as well.

D.L.: If you thought that was rude, you should unsubscribe. What is rude is signing yourself up for an email list and then not taking the 5 seconds it requires to unsub yourself, but rather asking the list owner to do it for you because obviously they have way more time than you do!

Jacki: Each and every email from the list _has the unsubbing information in the
footer. Also, please note : I just posted this information on Jan 21. Sorry, but, IMO, FWIW, the rude person is not me --the list mom (who is not the list slave) but folks expecting others to perform tasks for them that they are or should be (particularly if they are or are thinking about homeschooling their own children) capable of performing for themselves, now that's rude in my book.

Peace within. peace between. peace among,
Jacki

Friend: For crying out loud, you people are way too emotional! Honest mistake--get over it!

Jen: I think we should all put a 30 minute hold on angry postings. It is really unpleasant to read these tirades and it reflects badly on us all.
Yes, I waited 30 minutes to send this.
P.S. I am going offline the rest of the day, just in case this provokes angry tirades (just joking....mostly).

D.L.: No, it isn't a mistake. It is a blatant act of NOT following simple instructions, which are listed at the end of EVERY email sent to this list.

D.L.: Sorry, Jen, I didn't wait 30 minutes. Mainly because I know Jacki has several other things going on today and simply doesn't need to deal with these petty "unsubscribe" posts. After 12+ years of helping her with these lists, I do tend to get a little aggravated with people who can't/won't do things for themselves.

Friend: Perhaps it's time for you to retire then, before your blood pressure gets the best of you over something so unimportant, in the grand scheme of things, as a listserve.

D.L.: I would if others were willing to step up to the plate, instead of telling us how to do things!

Traci: Looks like we have weeded out the crazies now! LOL

David: Well in the grand scheme of things not much in our lives is important. That just goes to show that the grand scheme of things is of limited usefulness in judging what is important in our everyday lives. I think having your time wasted by inconsiderate people is quite reasonably a matter of some personal importance. And of course if it was the first time it had ever happened it would be easy to let it pass. But when it has been pretty regularly repeated for years, it gets old, very old.

Friend: It's unfortunate that you feel that your reaction to everyday inconveniences is not important in the grand scheme of things. It's also unfortunate that you are a group that does not forgive mistakes. I'm sorry, but not all of us are perfect in every detail of everything we do in life, as you would claim to be.

Amanda: Ok. How about we just unsubscribe from this thread? ;)

That was the best idea someone thought up all day. And that finally ended it.

I think it's time for Jacki to rewrite her goal statement from peace all around and instead try for something a little more attainable, or at least find a new catch phrase that meshes more with her online personality. Also, learning correct punctuation would be beneficial, especially since you are your children's teacher (I corrected a few of the errors so that you don't come off as a complete idiot).

D.L., you should probably schedule yourself for an upper GI to check for an ulcer.

Traci, way to promote your group!

And David, I sincerely hope you find a purpose for living (other than insulting people, whom you don't know, on listservs).

and we worried, fretted, and argued over Obama's speech to schoolchildren...

Short conversation with my first grade son after school :


"Did you get to hear the president speak today?"

"Yeah."

"Where? On TV?"

"On Good Morning America."

"What did he talk about?"

"I don't remember. I have a bad memory."

"Was it about school or a job?"

"I don't know. It was getting boring so I stopped listening."

Selective hearing loss starts much younger than I thought it did.

the "first day of kindygarden" mugshot that every mother dreams of

kindergarten begins for the boy

Why is it that 5-year-olds spend precious minutes describing to their parents how they are about to defecate on themselves while crouching and grimacing, when the toilet is only steps away? I thought that the Freudian anal stage ended several years ago.

That is the best I could do for the segue into this blog entry on my big baby starting kindergarten in the morning.

We took a trip to Marble Slab Creamery to celebrate "The End of the Summer." Of course, that's just an expression for "The End of Freedom and Unaccountability," because the summer temperatures will be with us here in Tennessee for a couple more months. As it is, the big oak tree beside my house in the backyard has been turning yellow. Rain from Hurricane Fay finally reached us, forcing the faded leaves to drop like it is October in Illinois.

I'm going to try to be organized and pack up the lunch tonight. I know this won't last for more than a week! The sandwich shouldn't get soggy when it only has peanut butter on it. The metal thermos is ready to make its long-awaited appearance (whether this will be an embarrassment to him or not remains to be seen).

His school clothes are hanging neatly in the closet. Hours of laundry finally put away, a vicious cycle in which I have probably wasted a year of my life doing. We will choose the outfit in the morning. You know how it goes--all the best clothes for the first week, then the much-loved overwashed t-shirts get to be worn after that.

I will make the 5-minute drive to the front door of the school everyday. In a hard-won compromise, I agreed to let him take the bus home.

After the drop-off, the school is hosting a breakfast for the kindergarten parents. It's supposed to make us feel better about sending our babies off to school. I hope they are feeding us biscuits and gravy (I am not morphing into a Southerner. I've always loved those soft refined-grain biscuits smothered in fatty white gravy, even when I lived in Illinois, but could really only find a good platter of it at McDonald's, sadly). But Southern food is comfort food.

I've heard many people say something like "I'm a better parent with this one, now that I'm older." I've come to realize that I am still very much the same person that I was ten years ago, with many of the same dreams and desires, and even more fears. Not a better parent, but a more careful parent. Careful to guard their feelings and youth, to commit to memory occasions that may seem insignificant now but will tell the story of their lives down the road, to nurture their sense of humor as much as their intellectualism, to recognize beginnings and endings and savor them as long as I possibly can.

He forgot to take his blanket to bed, the tattered crib comforter left over from my oldest daughter. The batting has been replaced, but it also succumbed to countless trips being dragged along the floor.

He's screaming down the stairs that he needs this blanket. I yell for him from my chair at the computer desk to come and get it. He finds it in the dark and bounds back up to his bed. He's yelling again, "You forgot to cover me!" I resist the urge to say "You're a big boy, you can cover yourself." This is one of the last signs of his babyhood that I have left, and I'm not quite ready to let it go. I pull away from my writing and tuck him in once more.

High School

My eldest daughter has attended private schools her entire life. Not the expensive, how-to-manage-your-hired-help situated on 120 acres with horseback riding lessons type, but simply run-of-the-mill suburban parochial institutions. This will be her first year in a public system.

She was very worried about fitting in, as if public school students are an alien species. I researched the school districts in Middle Tennessee until my computer iced over, and finally decided upon one that made the U.S. News and World Report top 1000 in the country.

Out came my old yearbooks with an enthusiastic fervor, in hopes that I could demonstrate to Aubrey the essence of public school. I lovingly flipped to the back page, and in a fit of nostalgia read the autographs from old friends out loud.

"Until we bomb the Middle East..." (this was in 1990)
"Lucifer lives..."
"The Sly will provide..."

"I thought you said that public school kids were normal," Aubrey responded glibly.

"Uh, let's look at something else."

I was part of the "independent thinking" group (of which my group despised the assumption that we were actually a group). And yet, still a choir geek...

"How about this choir program from my junior year? Look, there I am dancing to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Groans are heard from the sidelines.

I wonder if I am doing my children a disservice by moving to this place, where you can be passed by three or four BMW's and surrounded by Lexi on 3 sides while driving a 1-mile stretch of road. Will they understand life, know that humanity, nature and God are the basis of all things--that "things" are not the basis of anything but burgeoning superficiality, and ignore the blatant fact that 1/4 of the senior class drives brand new Mustangs? Will they still like to bargain hunt with their mom, or will I be an embarrassment to their Brentwood-raised way of life?

Today begins the weekend frenzy of sales tax-free shopping for school supplies and clothes. Brentwood is one of the wealthiest towns in Tennessee, and she knows it. I think that we will stop at the Goodwill store before hitting the mall this time.