By: Jennifer Ziemba
For those of you with elementary aged children, you might relate. Pick up sucks the life out of me on a daily basis. The amount of people filing in front of the building in one large mass of humanity is just intimidating. Then there is the line of cars a mile long waiting to be let in to wait alongside all the parents and siblings and grandparents on the sidewalk. I think I scream “What is wrong with you” at least once a day as I drive through the parking lot searching for a spot just to be sent out the other side defeated because there is not one spot to be had. There are cars parked in the grass, in the dirt, on the curbs, and so far away the kid might as well walk home.
So I decided to leave work early one day and try the pickup line. The long, relentless pick up line. When I say long, I mean 50 cars wrapped around the front and the side and onto the cross streets long. But, I got there early so I was one of the first cars. Granted, I had to get there 45 mins before the bell was to ring to get that coveted spot. I was there waiting proudly for my fifth grader.
The cars start to move. Yes, I am so excited at this point. The kindergarteners are let out and the gates are open. Then the first and second graders come out and start filing in the cars in front of me which moves me up the line. This is great!
Finally the older grades are released. A school attendant asks me to roll down my window. I comply, a little confused. She asks my child’s name and grade. I tell her and she immediately screams his name so loudly that I think people in Arizona heard her. She was walking down the row of cars alongside the adults waiting to pick up their children screaming my son’s name and grade. I was watching the door he comes out and he hadn’t come out yet, so what was happening? Why was she screaming his name so aggressively and so LOUDLY? She then went to the next car and did the same thing with their child’s name. Everyone could hear our children’s names and grades.
I saw everyone’s heads turn as she screamed the names. Everyone! I don’t know if everyone was there with good intentions. I don’t know if there was someone observing this from a distance, but everyone heard my child’s name and when my son came to my car they then had a name with a face. Not something you want everyone to know. Not safe!
I was livid! How dare you put my child at risk. How dare you put any child at risk. I know my son has a good head on his shoulders and has the sense to steer clear of someone that claims to know him. What about that third grade little girl from the car behind me? That tiny little girl with the blonde curly hair. Does she know that woman that heard her name and now knows her face is not a good lady? Would she know not to go with her when she claims her mom sent her? All while her mom sits further back not visible yet in the pickup line because she was running a little later that day. Did that woman just walk off with that sweet little girl because of her name being broadcast loudly over and over?
Not on my watch! The next day I did exactly what I did the day before. I got in the long pick up line and watched as the younger children filed out happily jumping in the arms of their proud parents and hopping into the back seats of their awaiting vehicles. I moved up the line just as I had the day before. And BAM I was first in line. Here comes that same school attendant.
I rolled down my window and calmly told her, “Please don’t scream my child’s name.”
She was taken aback. Like I sucker punched her right in the gut. I explained to her that while I know what her end goal is with the names and grades that it is not safe to broadcast children’s names for every Tom, Dick and Harry to hear.
She has since ceased that practice and I appreciate that, but how many parents out there are putting their child’s name on backpacks and screaming right alongside that attendant? A lot. A lot of parent’s think nothing will happen to their child. Be vigilant and be the voice for your child. There is nothing wrong with sticking up for the vulnerable. Protect our youth and make sure your children know who is allowed to pick them up.
It is a crazy world out there and please, don’t scream my child’s name!
