Dear Daughter's Idea

DD and I were talking this weekend about finances, and I was showing her some of the financial blogs I read on a regular basis. She has this interesting idea that I should write a blog on being the single mom of twin teens! Now, isn't that a novel idea?! haha No, I haven't told either of my kids that I do this. I haven't told them that I'm on Facebook either. Not sure why, just maybe that I need to keep a few things to myself, I suppose. Anyhow, she had a few ideas on articles, so in the next few weeks, I'll try to write more specific to parenting with teens and financial issues, etc. Maybe I'll even let her in on my secret!

Speaking of the twins, yesterday was the day the 8th graders left for their trip to Washington, DC. And I still feel guilty that my kids couldn't go. In fact, I'm sure I feel worse than they do. DD said that most of her classes will be showing movies all week, and while I know it's a hard balance between keeping the kids staying behind occupied and keeping the kids who went from missing too much schoolwork, I must say that I'm not too thrilled that my kids won't be doing anything more substantial at school the next few days. DD wanted to know why the DC trip couldn't be held during spring break, and I think that's a good question. I know some families travel then, but you'd think that would be a more appropriate time for a chunk of kids to be gone. (We do plan on going on our own to DC, probably in 2010, and I'm betting that we will do it for a longer period of time and for less money than the school trip, which was right around $1000 for both kids. We'll just have to see what the economy is like then, but right now, I'm thinking that would be just about our budget for the three of us. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next year.) It also seems to me that the kids that could benefit from a trip like this the most are the ones who are excluded due to the cost. (The school only held one fundraiser for this trip back in late fall last year. If they really wanted to benefit the most kids, fundraisers would have been held from 6th grade on, allowing kids a bit more time and opportunity to raise money.) DD runs with a group of girls who are all very nice, good students, good kids, but they come from low income families. They are the ones who would really benefit from a trip like this, but cost prohibits any of them from going. It just doesn't seem right.