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Maplewood Diary

 In Maplewood, the white parents sometimes get upset about “after-care.” This was a service--now suspended--that looked after your children once the final bell had sounded.


The white parents go to Facebook and write: “I guess I’ll need to give up my job now, since there is no one to watch my kid after 2:30!”

Other parents respond with “sad-face emojis,” and a few use the “virtual hug” option.

Inevitably, a super-pious lefty contrarian parent weighs in. She takes a “wide-eyed alien approach.” With just a hint of edge, she writes, “Are people now entitled to after-care? Must teachers be babysitters after three pm? That’s certainly not how the world worked when *I* was a teacher....”

One option would be to ignore this lone voice, but that’s impossible. The piousness reaches new heights: “KW, I am a teacher RIGHT NOW. I cannot teach MY STUDENTS because MY GENETIC OFFSPRING DO NOT HAVE AFTER-CARE. If PRESENT-DAY TEACHERS cannot keep their day jobs....then no one wins....”

KW then tries to pretend she meant something other than what she had meant.

It’s around this point in the dialogue that I begin to have my first cravings for veggie straws.....
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