In most situations, I tend to ride down a tempered path when it comes to my reaction to life as a mom.  I prefer to to see both sides of the story before I react, working to keep the peace and introduce calm when things get hairy.  Taking things with a grain of salt and compassion.  But today I’m mad and the Mama Bear in me is ready to roar.

Mama Bear is Pissed Off!

Regular R&R Mom readers and those who live in our neck of the woods are aware of the fact that we’re in the midst of a teachers strike.  Its been a crazy couple of months as we parents sit helpless, watching events unfold with our kids’ education hanging in the balance.  Embattled educators are caught between a raging government that claims to put families first (but does the exact opposite) and a Union that is doing a terrible job of delivering their message.  Salary bumps and benefits aside, the teachers have some serious concerns about how our public education system runs and we have seen first hand how those shortcomings have effected our kid in the classroom.

Through this whole situation, I’ve felt helpless.  What can I do?  I’m just one person with one kid in a system of thousands.  So I wrote a letter to my MLA, the Premier and the Head of the Teachers’ Union.  But they don’t really care what I think and they made that abundantly clear in the form letter each of them sent in reply.  The Head of the Union told me that I need to stand beside the teachers and write to my MLA.  The MLA wrote about how its all the Premier’s fault and that her party were liars and cheats.  And the Premier, well of course, she never responded.

So now I feel helpless AND REALLY pissed off.

The common response around here when we discuss this situation is to put our kids in private school.  For many reasons, that’s not in the cards for us right now.  So we continue to sit and wait with our Shorty merely a pawn in the political posturing and rhetoric.  Helpless and now steaming mad.