Paperwork is an an essential part of adulting. And for those adults with kids, paperwork is amplified 10 folds.
While tackling my most recent paperwork relating to school transport for the 2026-2027 school year, I filled out a request to move our bus stop closer to our home. Currently the bus stops 4 blocks away. Not a terrible walk by any stretch, however, it feels terrible when doing it at 6:20am, when it is too cold, too dark, and/or too rainy. Given that no other kids ride the bus in the morning; and given that the bus already passes the proposed stop closer to home, I found my request to be rather logical and easy to get approved.
But America doesn’t run on logic and ease when it comes to parenting. At least it feels like so to me.
A very nice lady called me a few days later in response to my request. She said I would have to resubmit my request a month after school starts. Okay. Fine. I see why the school wants to spend the first 30 days testing out the old plan, before taking in the requests from parents for stop changes. Parents are a demanding bunch after all.
She very kindly added that I should be prepared for heartbreak once I do resubmit my request since the current location is considered central to the neighborhood.
Central? For whom? I wondered.
No other children ride the bus in the morning to get to school, I said. Then I put $100 of my own hard earned money on the line and asked that she pull the data for the last 10-years of how many kids took the bus in the morning from our neighborhood and if it is greater than 1, I would be happy to pay up and shut up.
“Ma’am. I don’t know,” the sweet lady said. “All I know is that this location is considered central to all future residents that might move in the neighborhood and there is little to no chance of getting it moved.”
So, dear future neighbor with kids who haven’t yet moved in but might one day. Please make your kids take the morning bus so that I can sleep a little easier at night. Please don’t carpool like the entire neighborhood does. Please make your children do this tiny bit of a hard thing because the rest of their life is so f*cking manicured. It will do them good. And if more kids decide to take the morning bus, they will lure more bus drivers with more pay, and then we will have plenty of school buses and happier bus drivers making a good wage taking over precious children to their learning institutions. And none of us will have to drive our cars to and from school. Please. Do this for me when you move in, okay?
And lastly thank you to my county government for prioritizing the needs of potential future children that might never materialize, over the current living breathing humans that do exist and take the bus.
This is the perfect segway into some pictures from our recent trips to France (the later part of our spring break this April) and Spain (in May, where Dev and I escaped alone for a week of some exploring the countryside before eventually ending in Blanes on Costa Brava to celebrate our friends’ wedding). I was in favor of the priorities these places had for kids. May be we can do the same?
Spain
France
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