Yet again we’re the weird ones, and yet again, I’ve come to terms with being cool with it.
Yesterday my wife and I were waiting for our son’s bus to come pick him up, along with our daughter in tow. I noticed that I felt a little odd, but as I’ve discovered the root of this feeling, it quickly evaporated. All the other kids at the stop only had one caregiver there. Our family was out in force, while everyone else was operating at minimum staffing to deliver their progeny to the school system.
This is all new to us, the whole having a bus transport our eldest kid to and from school. For years we carted the kids off and back to daycare; the comparative convenience of the bus system is amazing. I still take our two year old daughter to day care three days a week, but our new non-shady daycare is less than ten minutes away(almost half the distance of the previous one), so the whole kid logistics thing has gotten so much easier. Can’t even imagine what life will be like when they’re both on the bus.
On the first day of kindergarten, everyone was at the bus stop-both parents(when that is the applicable family dynamic), grandparents, and even siblings saw the kids off. Quickly we saw the norm go down to one parent walking or driving their kid to the bus stop. From my observations over the years of living in this neighborhood, I know this normal. It seems many families either have one parent do the morning and afternoon bus waiting, whereas others switch off the responsibility.
I’ve also noticed over the years that many of our neighbors wait in their cars at the bus stop. Being a self righteous judgmental dick, I scoffed at this. I figured it was because they were pampering their kids so they wouldn’t have to brave the elements-cue the inner monologue of “back in my day I walked to school in eight feet of snow uphill both ways for 100 miles while battling Sasquatches blah blah blah”. And then, like usual, when I actually talked to the people waiting in their cars and learned the specifics of their situation, I understood their reasoning and realized for about the hundredth millionth time I should stop being such a judgy cockbag.
Yeah, getting out of the elements is a small part of the equation. But mostly it’s about logistics. By driving to the bus stop, this allows the parent in question to see their kid on and off the bus(as school policy dictates), and then allows them to immediately drive to work. Maybe it only saves a few minutes, but when you’re juggling kids and work, a few minutes can make the difference between being sorta late and being stressed-you’re-going-to-get-fired super late. And these people are stressed.
Which is why I felt weird standing at the bus stop with my wife, our son who is getting on the bus, and our daughter who is too young for school. Everyone else at the stop is either the kid getting on the bus, or the sole caregiver designated from their respective family unit to send the kid off. Comparatively, our family unit has overstaffed this operation by 200%.
It took me a few days to put a finger on why I felt weird. Once I put two and two together, I immediately stopped feeling weird, and instead felt grateful. Thanks to front loading a bunch of work by following the FIRE thing, I’m either early retired or taking a long as fuck sabbatical. Either way, I’ve got nowhere else to be most days, so I’d like to go to the bus stop. My wife still works a job that she seems to like more than not, but averages less than 30 hours a week, most of which is remote and flexible. So she comes with too. And it’s not like I’m in any rush to get our daughter off to daycare. She loves waiving at the giant yellow thing her big brother climbs aboard. This means many days we’re all down there ten minutes early, while other families come barreling in at the last minute with just one stressed caregiver doing a drop off approaching the speed of a drive-by shooting.
Got to say, pretty nice being on this side of things. We worked hard to get here, and we were lucky to stumble upon the FIRE movement when we did. In the beginning of our journey, I felt weird bringing my lunch, not having a car, and living in a smaller house than my friends. But eventually I got used to it. Now I get to feel weird about having the luxury of my entire family meandering to the bus stop most days just to see one of our kids off, and not be rushed through the process. I’m looking forward to even more weird feels down the line stemming from this odd but mostly gratifying lifestyle.
What about you? Anything you’re doing because of FIRE life that puts you at odds with the rest of normal society? I’d love to hear about it.
