Can you please explain to me why you would choose not to help at a PTA event?

[Hassled]

A genuine question, although I have to admit to being a tad exasperated at the moment. I feel I'm missing a point somewhere, but I'm not sure what.

Let's say that there was a big PTA fundraising event (BBQ) coming up. The PTA have sent out newsletters etc making it clear that they want to raise funds to improve the school playground and to replace existing sports strips. You plan to attend with your DP, you're not in any way unwell and don't have a baby in tow. Why would you not volunteer to run a stall for half an hour? If you were specifically asked if you could help, why would you say no?

All I can come up with is a) you value the rare time you have as a family too much to want to interrupt the evening by one parent being elsewhere for half an hour or b) you haven't really grasped the reason PTA events take place (i.e. the improved playground) and dismiss the events as not really your concern. Both of which are valid, I guess, but I really want to know what else goes on in people's minds in these cicumstances. Have I just turned into too much of a PTA harpy?

I wonder how many of those who are so against the PTA would be happy to pay an extra £10 every time their children go on a school trip?

Because the cost of the coaches has to come from somewhere, and if there wasn't a PTA then the parents would have to pay, or the children would have to go without.

Bet there would be complaints then ey.

i am currently doin glots and lots with and for the pta. however, as soon as it stops being fun, i intend to stop.
the kids go to a very well provided for state school. th epata raise tens of thousand s of pounds for the school every year. it wont destroy the school if i stop helping out.

Because you are already holding down two part time jobs as well as caring for your children and managing the house and any time you get to just BE with your kids (e.g. at a school social event) is of value in itself.

(That's me)

Because you find being on a stall terrifying because you are chronically shy and/or incapable of adding up.

(Some of my friends)

Because you haven't really stopped to think about what it's all for and you are not the volunteering type.

(Many people. No point fighting it - it's true.)

I haven't given it the slightest consideration Ruby and no doubt never will. I do not want to be involved. I'll wait to get arrested shall I?

PS - I do volunteer when I can. Just not every time.

I don't get a babysitter when I need to help. this morning I had my friends little one as well as mine while she paints some of playgroup interior. Later int he week I'm sure she'll have my tribe while I do some painting. I joined the committee to meet people even though I'm shy in situations I don't know, at least now I know loads of people and turning up/helping with events had become a lot easier for it.

wannaBe - you make it sound as if the PTA has its own source of money - in reality it's recycling parental donations.

katierocket, I would suggest that one of the reasons that people can feel intimidated into not helping out at PTA events is that there are often evangelical over the top people helping/in charge who have nasty responses to those who do not want to/cannot help out, and feel out of their depth. Maybe they don't want to be around such people

Message withdrawn

I also find PTA people scary.
One year the man who was supposed to be calling the auction cried off at the last minute with a sore throat and they (PTA) were desperately looking for a replacement. I enthusiastically offered my services (I am a radio presenter after all) and was ignored. Honestly I offered twice and PTA nightmare woman looked right through me trying to pretend she hadn't heard. Bitch! That stung I tell you.

She let some crappy, muttering man do it instead. I felt hurt and rejected.

None the less I often feel guilty about not helping but realistically I have four children. The 3 year old needs to be looked after all the time. Perhaps when he gets older ...

I pay for us all to get in, we buy loads of stuff there, I contribute bottles and toys for the tombola and I spent over £100 at the auction.

Look, the bottom line is ... some people want to help out. Others don't. Big deal. You have no idea what other lovely, nice, great community spirited things other people are doing with their spare time. Maybe they're caring for a sick mum, giving loads to charity ... or just managing to feed the cats and the kids. People do what they can and this attitude of judging them for NOT doing what YOU are doing is frankly what frightens people off PTFA events.

A thred like this, which reveals the extent of the judgement, may well make people steer clear altogether .... then you'll have no-one hooking your ducks and forking out for tombola tickets. Then where will you be?

Message withdrawn

I have four dcs so my association with our primary school extends over the past decade - only dc4 left there now.

For the first several years I was really active, always had a stall at fetes, helped out on school trips, etc. Now I have 3 older dcs at 2 different secondaries and feel I have done my bit with the primary. Find some of the PTA apparatchiks really annoying as they corner me in the supermarket - most of them have children much younger than mine. They don't get why I feel it is now someone else's turn to do things. Err, because I have given all there is to give and am now an exhausted, wasted shell?

Why would I say no?

Because erm, I work around 50 hours a week and my spare time has to be spent with the DCs refereeing the squabbling doing quality time things. Not going off to some random PTA event (or PITA event).

Also our circs are different as DCs at fee-paying schools, the PITA is just that and only exists to dignify the yummies' collective existence.

puppymonkey - that's just the attitude that is the problem - 'if it doesnt benefit my kid why should i bother'.
One of the Dads in DD1s class last year, who is good at DIY, made shaped panels from MDF to cover the railings on a little mezzanine floor they have in that classroom to make it look like a castle. He didn't finish it before the end of term but he is going to finish it next term even tho his child will no longer be in that class.

I helped make new stuff for the part of the playground used by the babies even tho my daughter doesnt have access to that part of the playground.

Well said Spider.

agree with spidermama

I work full time as does DP. I also study 15 hrs per week. DH and I run a kids community football team, both coaching and admin.

We have both at various times responded to requests for assistance from the PTA and have never, ONCE, been taken up on it despite both of us being CRB checked. Our PTA is a closed shop. So now we don't bother.

Is that a good enough reason?

amen to that spidermama

The OP might have been better phrased as "how can I persuade more people to help out." If you understood why people don't then you can lure them in.

Probably most people feel it will take too much time and everyone is frantically outbusying each other these days. And - though this surprises me - it sounds as if some SPAs or PTAs are offputting and cliquey.

Excellent post, spidermama.

I must admit I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I don't help out more on stalls etc. Then I remember I'm a single parent with a full-time job (involving working shifts and weekends) and studying.

I also remember the time when I was ticked off like a naughty schoolgirl - in the middle of the playground fgs - by a PTA mum for something completely inconsequential that I had omitted to do at the exact point in time she thought it should have been done.

I bring bottles and toys for the tombola etc. I send in the cash for the seemingly endless mufti days. I collect the Sainsbury's tokens for sports equipment etc. I buy the raffle tickets and the cream teas and spend money on the bouncy castles and the hook-a-duck and the splat-the-rat. I scour my house and my parents' house for children's deckchairs and old plant pots and spare paper for painting on and loo rolls and whatever else they want - and they do want something, almost every week, but that's fine.

So now I've justified myself unnecessarily - we're not all apathetic, most of us do contribute, just not in exactly the same way you do.

Shitemum - good for you. Glad you feel good about contributing.

I on the other hand feel no such compulsion... it's not because I feel my daughter isn't benefiting from particular things either. Even if she was, I still probably wouldn't be involved. Like Spidermama says, I have other things to do in my life and am happy to have nowt to do with the PTA.

coffecrazedmama - i agree, having offered to do a badge-making stall (i have a machine) at the end of year party 3 years ago I was asked to do it again the following two years. This meant that I was unable to enjoy the party, the cooks clown show (one of them is a proffesional clown in his spare time!) and missed DDs class doing a poem.
Next year is her last year and if they ask me to do the badge stall again i will decline. I have done loads over the past 3 years, I have done my bit and more.

Because I already volunteer at the school for 6 hours a week and I feel I do my bit.

Weekend events are for spending time with my dd, not supervising cake stalls or serving up hot dogs.

I have no interest in the PTA although I commend those that do give their time to it.It's just not for me- and no one has the right to tell me otherwise, thank you.