In my day…

We had a parent-teacher conference for our youngest son last week.  Over here, they invite the student to particpate in the parent-teacher conference.  I really don’t get this concept.  When I was young, your parents went for the conference at night, you waited at home and imagined all the horrible things you’d done at school and wait for your punishment when they got home.

These days over in Sweden, or at least at our kids’ school, the teachers ignore the parents and talk to the children.  “How do you like it in school? Oh, you don’t like where you sit?  No problem, we’ll find somewhere you’re more comfortable sitting.”

Really?!!  In my classes, you usually sat in alphabetical order and never moved the rest of the year, even if the kid sitting behind you cut your hair off and stole your books.  You just didn’t move.

Our young son complained because I sometime forget to send him with a fruit for an “extra” snack.  My husband laughed and said, “When I was young, we only got a carrot each day.”  Then I had to chime in with, “You got a snack?  We never got a snack.  I never got to bring a snack to school and neither did anyone else.”

I think my son actually felt sorry for me at that point.

We also had to bring our lunch to school or pay for some week-old sloppy joe in the lunch line.  I spent 4 years eating a brownie every day for lunch.  Here in Sweden, all children get a free school lunch – normally a buffet, complete with salad and about 3 options.  Today they’re having chicken curry with jasmine rice.  This includes a full salad bar.  All for free!

Here’s what a school menu for the week looked like at my school:

Monday – spaghetti
Tuesday – sloppy joe
Wednesday – square, stale ground beef pizza
Thursday – leftover pizza
Friday – scary lasagne and jello – cause it’s Friday

There were no vegetarian dishes, no gluten free.  We were in Texas.  Every meal was ground beef, plus you had to pay 2 dollars for the privledge of eating it.

These kids don’t realize how good they have it.