DIY Parenting

 

May 8, 2026

 

I was listening to some people talk about how school doesn’t teach kids things that will help them in real life, like balancing a checkbook. For the record, my school, back in the dark ages, did teach a lesson on it; but I already knew, because (gasp!) my parents had taught me.

 

That’s right, folks, my parents took the time to show me things that I needed to know.

 

I didn’t say to the people who were talking, “When I was 9 or 10, my dad handed me his checkbook register and said, ‘Add up those numbers.’ And it was a pretty long column, and we didn’t have a calculator. But we got the checkbook balanced.”

 

No, I said, “Schools are busy teaching things like math, English, and other useful subjects. If you want your kids to learn things like that, you can either teach them yourself or send them to Saturday school.” (I was thinking of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding", where the kids had to go to Greek school on Saturdays.)

 

One person looked like he agreed. If I’d stuck around longer, somebody might have gone into the fact that kids had activities on Saturday; and I could have said, “Your choice. Just don’t dump your responsibilities on teachers.” But it was getting loud at the venue, so I moved on.

 

But seriously, folks, try raising your kids yourselves. Don’t blame schools for not doing it.

 

 

 

If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Change the Election Date

 

April 7, 2026

 

With the sort of logic that makes Missouri famous, a legislator who’s upset that conservative candidates aren’t winning school board elections decided that the reason the conservatives weren’t winning was that voter turnout in the April elections was low. And voter turnout was low because the voters were too busy to vote.

So, the voters who care enough to show up and vote aren’t the solid citizens that you want making decisions for the well-being of students and the state in general: They are just people who don’t have enough to do.

 

The politicians who support moving the elections to the general elections in November make no bones about why they’re doing it: “The teachers and folks that are supporting the teachers unions are the only ones voting for the most part because people are busy living their lives,” says St. Charles County Councilman Joe Brazil.

 

In other words, conservatives are too busy to go to the ballot box in April, and it’s the liberals’ fault that that the conservative candidates aren’t getting elected.

 

The man who formed a conservative group for one school district says moving school board elections to November would “level the playing field” against the unions and liberal groups.

 

 No bias there.

 

The upshot of these mental gymnastics is that the St. Charles School District, against the recommendation of the non-liberal Director of Elections for the county, is now the sole county in the state that will have school-board elections on the November ballot beginning in 2028.

 

The rest of the state is remaining, for Missouri, relatively sane.