Hi Betsy:
I enjoyed this article. I’m helping with one of my daughter’s teams. It is the same moms who never get the email or the note home. What I find unexcuseable is they have their children relay the “reason” why their mothers have not followed through! Use your cell phone and call for yourself. You should not put your child in the position to recite your excuses. Grow up-and take the responsibility!
Thanks for letting me respond.

Hello Betsy:
Most of the time when I read your column I say “amen!”. However, one niggling little thing stuck in my craw with this one. How are children supposed to learn responsibility? Why should you pick up the Girl Scout cookies, sign them up for T-ball, or deliver a permission slip? Shouldn’t that be their responsibility? Especially since you’re a single mother, shouldn’t they be helping you?

Hi Joni and Janet - great points.

Janet, you are right. Though this column was written a little tongue-in-cheek, and the t-ball folks require the “parents” to sign up btw, still I had this very thought the other day: every time I do anything around the house, I need to ask myself “is this something the kids could be doing instead?” They do a good bit, I suppose from shoveling, garbage and dishwasher duty, to laundry and vacuuming and dusting. (They don’t do ALL of it, mind you, but they are capable of doing, and do help with, those things.)

But, it’s nothing compared to what I had to do as a kid! So, my new rule is - can a child be doing this instead of me. (And by the way, they can and should be bringing their permission slips to ME.)

So, thanks for the reminder - Betsy

Hi,

What you seem to have missed is that for someone to have a headwind problem, they have to be something of an airhead.

And of course, we all know what “passing wind” means, so really, “headwind” as used in your examples is just a euphamism for “brain fart.”

Once everyone catches on, I doubt corporate execs will go on saying “results were poor because I had a brain fart.”

But we can hope.