No we are not babysitters ...

It's summer again. And summer means BMX.

Our first club night was on Thursday. And from the start the main thing that (I want to use the phrase "ripped my undies" but I'm a lady) annoyed me was that it was just the same old crew doing the same old things and the same old people standing around doing nothing. Or there are the ones who sit in their cars and read for the entire time. Or even the ones who drop their kids and drive off ...

I can't understand that. Am I maybe too involved in my rugrats lives and activities ? If they are involved with something, then I am involved too. If you want your kids to have the best experience they possibly can while doing something, then isn't it up to you as a parent to help make that happen ?

I watched a doco last year sometime about what "they" call "Helicopter Parents" ... who hover over their children's every move, well past the age of when it seems reasonable (and even on to when it starts to seem a downright creepy).

Both the rugrats are taking skating lessons this term. K wants to give up rugby next winter and play ice hockey instead - obviously he needs to learn to skate properly first. S has been chosen for the local Junior Development Squad ... so now skates twice a week.

Her best friend also skates, and is also in the squad. So her mother takes all three kids to the rink on a Monday night, and I take them on a Tuesday. And last Monday all through their lesson I was wondering whether the rugrats would be OK without me there, whether S would be OK without me to tie her skates, what if K fell over and hurt his head ...

But back to BMX. (I apologise for the rambling ... I think I'm trying to merge too many disparate topics, even though they all come down to the same thing, I just can't work out how to get them to do that in a particularly articulate fashion at present). We had a meeting. We dragged the parents out of their cars. And it was very clearly explained by the President (who is a far more diplomatic person than I could ever hope to be) that those of us who have always done everything are not going to continue to do so. And that if you want your children to have a place to race, then we expect you to volunteer. And if you don't volunteer ... we will give you a job anyway, because we are not a babysitting service.

And at the working bee we had this morning (wherein the track was groomed, the points hut and the canteen were all cleaned and painted and the lawns were trimmed) there were three times as many people as I have ever seen at a working bee here before.

Which leads me to think that maybe they just feel like we did when we first arrived at the club. There were people doing what they've always done and doing it really well. Maybe it's not that people don't want to help. Maybe it's just that they don't know how to help.