Are There Seatbelts on the Field Trip bus and other Burning Questions...

Okay, I remember when she was in kindergarden and all I really cared about was whether or not there were seat belts on the field trip bus. We had already made several trips to New York City where she had ridden in cabs without a car seat (better than Disneyland as far as the child was concerned), on subways where we stood, clinging to each other as one or all of us held onto a pole/strap/stranger in hopes of remaining upright and on buses to the Hollywood Bowl that sent us and our dinner sliding alternately from the back to the front of the bus (and yet lulled us to sleep on the way home). There we stood, outside the school gate, staring at the big yellow bus. "Well, they didn't have seat belts when I was a kid", one parent would invariably say and we would all silently nod, recalling all the school bus rides we had miraculously survived. Then someone would tell us it was actually safer for them to ride without seat belts because in an horrific accident they would not be strapped into their seats as the bus burned. Another long silence. Finally the more paranoid among us would pull our kids out of line and drive them ourselves while the rest of us drove our cars slowly behind the bus like a funeral procession on its way to the pumpkin patch.

Now we are in the waning days of elementary school. We have not only made peace with the lack of seat belts on the bus (although now apparently many of the buses do have them), but we have even allowed our kids to go on overnight field trips and lived to tell about it. So what can possibly scare me about a field trip now? You guessed it. The gift shop.

In the lower grades, the instructions were always the same - pack a sack lunch, a bottle of water and do not send money with your kid. Do. Not. Send. Money. With. Your. Kid. I loved that rule. Even if you were a chaperone, you were not allowed to hit the gift shop with your child in tow. (Although there were certainly parents who broke that rule - leaving the rest of us to explain to our sobbing children that just because Kiki's mom doesn't want to follow the rule doesn't mean it's not a rule.). Now, however, the gift shop is becoming the highlight of the field trips. The encore even. "BE SURE TO SEND MONEY FOR A SOUVENIR!" is printed right on the permission slip beside the sack lunch and water bottle requirement. Half the time they even send home an order form for the official field trip t-shirt. Like we need another t-shirt...

Now don't get me wrong. I like t-shirts and keychains and souvenir pens just as much as the next proud American. But I like to have some input in my 11 year old's impulse purchases. And sending a twenty dollar bill folded inside the sack lunch is not the kind of input I'm comfortable with. Frankly, I'm a fan of the $5 souvenir. A magnet or a keychain or a couple of postcards, maybe even a water bottle with the name of the location printed on the side. I might even get some change! But this particular field trip location apparently had a bakery of some sort because even the weekly class update letter encouraged us to go on the website and pre-order pies. PIES. Okay, first of all, I don't even like pie but if I did, I wouldn't want it making the two hour trip home on an 11 year old's lap, bouncing seat belt-less on a school bus, particularly when that 11 year old is surrounded by other 11 year olds who do not have a vested interest in getting that pie home safely. I know of at least one pie that arrived home with a big footprint in the middle. Not nearly as appetizing a visual as those cute little cut outs you see on the cooking channel.

But as I said, I don't like pie so while pre-ordering the field trip souvenir sounded good, it was not practical. So I was left with the decision of how much to send and the reality that she could use it to buy whatever crap she wanted. "But everyone is bringing $40", she whined (I know, I know I said $100 on Facebook. Status updates deserve artistic license for maximum impact.). I looked at the website and established that the gift shop was more accurately a candy store and other than maybe something small, whatever she bought would likely be a consumable. I suggested $5, got talked into $10 and then somehow guilted into $15 with the understanding that if she insisted on a pie, she could get one. But I can't say I was surprised when she got off the bus with a bag of candy. Or WOULD have, had she not somehow left it behind...

Okay, she did finally end up with her "souvenir" bag, which included of several pieces of salt water taffy (that fortunately she is allowed to eat since the braces came off 8 weeks ago), a half dozen sticks of hard candy, a small plastic bag filled with black sugar (not sure what that was supposed to "be" but suffice it to say, she's not as cute when her newly straightened teeth are black), a keychain and a bag of kettlecorn. Ten dollars. (She gave five dollars to a friend in exchange for some pie on the bus ride home.) Now, I'll admit, I have nothing against the keychain, although as my husband points out, she does not actually have keys. But apparently, there is no end to the amount of things you can dangle off the back of your backpack, so in the loosest sense of the word, I suppose you could call it practical. And I am very glad that her braces were off in time to enjoy the taffy... (last year's trip to San Francisco was a bust in that area - although we managed to spend the money we would have spent on taffy on chocolate candy instead). But there are quite a few of her classmates who still sport braces (or spacers or palate expanders... ah, what the dental world is coming to) who certainly could not have taken the taffy chance. So I can't help but ask, is a candy store (albeit an "old timey candy store") really the best idea on the field trip? Are we really sending our kids on a bus to buy pies? Do 11 year olds really need key chains? Was there a shelf selling shot glasses? How, exactly, is a trip to the gift shop a necessary stop on an educational field trip?????

Okay, obviously I must be one of those mean, cranky moms who never let their child get gum at the register in the supermarket or ice cream on the way home from school (which is alarmingly accurate although I have been known to knuckle under when a good grade is involved). But when children get a souvenir on every excursion (or a trophy at every game or an A in every class), doesn't it cheapen the souvenir, trophy, A? How long until she asks me if I want the keychain because it has been replaced by 5 more keychains from 5 more field trips? Or will she hang on to it forever like I hold on to my grandmother's english primer - out of a sense of responsibility? Responsibility to a THING - something she would never have purchased if the class hadn't stopped at the gift shop.

Look, I've chaperoned field trips. I know it's hard when the kids want to buy something and we have to say no. I prefer to usher them past the gift shop, right out to the bus, stopping only at the rest room and water fountain, because where one kid might have brought $20 (or $40 or $100!), there's another kid who has nothing, either because his mom forgot or her dad said they shouldn't spend the money or grandma dropped them off at school and it's lucky they had a sack lunch. The world encourages us to be consumers and that's never going to change, but unless we're on a field trip to learn how to buy things and count our change, let's try skipping the gift shop.