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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that having the bloody class bear to visit should be banned?

164 replies

poshme · 09/03/2011 20:01

I know its stupid but i'm sitting here in tears beacuse i do not have a colour printer to print the pictures for the diary entry i am supposed to write for the bear. i cannot even cut out the crappy black and white ones cos this evening my 6 week old dd sreams if i stay still or put her down.
the sodding bear arrived on monday and has to be returned tomorrow with 2 sides of writing and pics saying what he has done for the last few days...while ds was at school and after school. And I know it is not a competition, but it gets read out and shown to all the class, and then our entry goes in the folder for all the next parents who get the bear to read.
my son is just 5. he can write a few words. he cannot layuot pics on a computer. why why why do they give us this stupid task??? i was a teacher so i really want to support the school but this is making me feel like a shit mum cos ours will look crapper than everone else's..

OP posts:
CradleCrap · 09/03/2011 21:12

They have nusery bears!!!!Oh shit, DS has just started!

love the memories defname, that is the sort of "luck I have"

HerBeX · 09/03/2011 21:16

Oh LOL, do bears shit in the bedroom?

PigeonPie · 09/03/2011 21:20

I think I'd blame the bear for the illness. I try to suggest that 'Bertie' would like a bed made up for him at the bottom of the bed nowhere near DS1 - the thought makes me feel ill!

fifi25 · 09/03/2011 21:20

Our school monkeys been to Cyprus and Spain sipping cocktails. When i got it i thought i would give it a taste of Council Estate life. The photos consisted of the monkey swinging on the old womans bars over the road with the kids (bit of antisocial behaviour). Sitting on the sofa with a bag of muchies and revels, then on the trampoline with about 10 kids Grin
Lol at Marys idea

vintageteacups · 09/03/2011 21:22

Last year when it was DS' turn for the class Bear, we ran out of printer ink so we drew mini bears at the start of each thing we did (not a lot) and then ds wrote a few words about it.

Before us (we were quite late into spring by the time it was my Ds' turn), were the most amazing projects/master pieces you have ever seen!

One family had been to India over xmas and were allowed to keep the bear book for the whole 2 weeks to fill with their amazing pictures and journal facts! No-one could then compete so I DS started the ball rolling with hand written and drawn basic stuff and it was loved by all. Haven't seen the book since but I bet ours looks the worst most simple.

sb6699 · 09/03/2011 21:28

Our class bear has been all over the world, visited every site of historical interest and even been skyiving.

When he came to ours, I spent the whole weekend in a blind panic in case the dog chewed his head off so he ended up sitting on top of my wardrobe until it was time to leave!

In your case, do you have a spare photo of the baby you could glue in? I agree with others that children love hearing about babies so if I were you would just say the bear helped with feeding, changing nappies and went for a walk with the pram.

pigstrotters · 09/03/2011 21:29

When my ds had the class bear for the weekend he had very bad flu and was in bed most of the weekend and I had a newborn baby. It got sent back with nothing written in the book.

Did I worry about it?.......NO!

BiddytheKnackerwoman · 09/03/2011 21:35

We took 'Spencer' to Asda.

Turns out he'd never been before.

Said it shat all over Egypt.

MosEisley · 09/03/2011 21:39

YANBU. Our class Bear arrived to stay on my due date. The teacher could clearly see that I was about to pop, and she had all term to send the Bear home with DC1, but she preferred to wait until the least convenient moment. In the end DC1 & 2 were whisked off in the middle of the night and Bear was left behind as witness to my home birth.

At least he had an interesting time. I didn't include any photos. Grin

cinnamontoast · 09/03/2011 21:50

Poshme, you poor lamb. As I remember, evenings with a 6-week-old are the worst, as you're just so knackered after six weeks. As for the sodding bear, feed it to the dog. It's the parents' competitiveness I can't bear (bear? there's a pun there somewhere). Once DS had to do a poster about rock formation, which we helped him with but were careful to make sure it was his own work. He proudly took it into school only to find that half the class had made 3D models of a rock and one child had even directed his own video about rock formation (that must have made gripping viewing). Then there was the build-a-Greek-temple half-term project. After 3 hours spent trying to follow step 1 of the utterly inadequate instructions, I lost it totally and wrote a letter to the school basically saying what a load of bollocks it was. The teacher cornered me in the afternoon and said it had only been an optional project. This had never been made clear and every other child trotted into school with pretty much an exact replica of the Parthenon.

Kandinsky · 09/03/2011 22:25

In year one the children were asked to bring in a picture they had drawn of their house including as much detail of the features as they could manage. I of course sent DS out with a piece of paper and a clipboard and a comment about count how many windows there are and get on with it. He was very proud of his picture. Not quite sure what input some of his classmates had in their architecturally perfect diagrams. Live in an area with a lot of competitive parenting. Will be interesting to see how these children get on when they go to university.

Bobyan · 09/03/2011 22:28

If you have time to go on Mumsnet, maybe its just a matter of organisation...

fifi25 · 09/03/2011 22:30

wait till Easter and egg decoration time. This always shows the competative parents. Its quite funny because the egg that always wins at our school are the ones obviously made by a child.

randomness · 09/03/2011 22:30

We were going to take the fecking bear to the kids' club cinema showing on the Sunday morning (a quid a ticket)
When we got there all the bloody seats were taken so we ended up spending stupid money on full-price cinema tickets so we had something to write in the fecking book so the kids weren't disappointed.

Beveridge · 09/03/2011 22:39

I'm a secondary school teacher and DD is not yet 2 so maybe I'm missing something - but isn't the point of this that the diary should be written by a five year old? And that therefore a few lines and a drawn picture is the whole point??!

OP, I would set the very good example of leaving it completely for my child to do.

(This is making me very scared of sending DD to primary!)

ZZZenAgain · 09/03/2011 22:42

why are dc being given homework they cannot do? I really don't understand it. We all know this competitive edge is there for the involved parent so why is it still happening? I've been reading posts like this for years on here

loubielou31 · 09/03/2011 22:54

They're not being given homework they can't do. In this case the expectation is a simple picture and sentence or two written by the child with a little bit of help from an adult.

It starts off just like this and then the pushy parent gets hold of the bear, goes completely over the top, the child barely gets a look in and so the educational benefit is lost and all subsequent parents feel they have to compete.
Break the mould, get your child to do it themselves and stuff everyone else.

ZZZenAgain · 09/03/2011 22:55

what about the churches and tudor houses out of shoeboxes though? Can they do that?

GiddyPickle · 09/03/2011 22:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Maelstrom · 09/03/2011 22:59

I can't comment on this. I lost the damn bear while we were on holidays.

Politixmum · 09/03/2011 23:01

When we had the class rabbit for the weekend, DD peed on it first night and it spent the weekend on the washing line.

Then we had the class cat the next year, took it for a walk and managed to get photos in which DD looked unusually miserable and grumpy, next day she was ill so cat and journal had to stay with us all week.

Can't wait for next year's stuffed furry friend.

Grin

Tortoiseonthehalfshell · 09/03/2011 23:04

Jesus, Bobyan, do you not understand that one can MN while breastfeeding a fussy baby, but manufacturing a colour printer from scratch while writing funny diary entries and printing out photograhps taken in a number of interesting places is a tiny, teeny, eensy bit more difficult?

Or do you not care and just like to take opportunities to make postpartum mothers with newborns feel bad?

CarnivalBizarre · 09/03/2011 23:13

I swear to god that this whole taking the bear home thing is just a bunch of nosey arse teachers idea of finding out what we get up to at weekends!

When we had 'Scout' home for the weekend and I howled laughing at read the pile of shite that had been written in the diary ...ie....Scout stayed at Jamies house and we played water polo, croquet on the lawn, had a wonderful back massage from Rosa the maid then played some cribbage after a dinner of nothing but steamed vegetables ....it was most splendiferous and I can't wait to visit again - love Scout......you get the general idea of bullshitness going on

BOLLOCKS!!!

They went to McDonalds for tea and played the Wii all weekend Grin

Chippychop · 09/03/2011 23:23

Oh this is such a funny thread i've laughed outloud. At least OP you shoud get a laugh when you look back and read them all.

My ds was the last to get the bear in his class, i know someone has to be last but poor lamb couldn't understand why he wasn't given it when he was behaving so well. Stupid teacher was writing in the book "you have been given this bear because you have behaved so well/been a good girl/ listenened well etc well talk about making you feel your child isnt doing well. I wished she'd just given the bear alphabetically or something i could explain to ds.

Plenty parents in our class do drawings

blackeyedsusan · 09/03/2011 23:30

there must be someone who could come up with a good line in nasty "accidents"

teddy came to help mow the lawn....

teddy came to watch whilst I got the car out of the garage....

teddy was watching us fry pancakes when....

alternatively ensure that teddy gets put in the bin t school...
entries include...

Monday: we are potty training small sibling, teddy fell in the potty

tuesday: small sibling took teddy to the bathroom. he got lost

wednesday: Mummy called out the emergency plumber. he found teddy.

thursday: the foxes tipped up our bin and stole teddy

Friday: send a damp mucky teddy back to school sealed in a plastic bag Grin

we have never had teddy. I don't think i m looking forwaard to it.

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