One Moment Please! Are you a COMMI Mum?

COMMITTEE MUMS - You know them, the ones who hang out at school everyday, all day...

Attention to detail - not something COMMI Mums are good at! (Nicole Jecentho photography)

COMI Mums - you know the ones, the Mums who hang out in a small group at your child's school - in the same place, around about the same time everyday. The Mums who are on the school committees, sometimes the PTA, and sometimes various 'support' groups throughout the school year. I like to call them 'COMMI' Mums - and I like to capitalize their name because.... well, because they annoy me.

Let me put it like this - unfortunately for some schools, their social events are dictated and designed by women (who from what I have gathered) have no academic skills, no jobs, and no creativity. But, it seems they have a lot of time.

Now, I'm the first person to support individuals efforts towards their local schools - that's all wonderful and fuzzy etc. But, there is something called 'capture' - a term used in political and public service circles from time to time to describe a situation where a small group of (usually highly bureaucratic) people capture a process - such that the decision at the end point is whatever they wanted all along. And I believe that is what happens 99% of the time with school events and their 'parents groups'.

Beauty doesn't take much 

I'm self-employed, so I have flexibility with my time. In the past I had ventured up to the school to take part in some weekly 'parents support' meetings. I lasted about two weeks with it because of the level of 'clickiness' within the meeting. The group was closed to new ideas, new skills even, and new people in general. For example, the Principal wanted this particular parents support group to start taking minutes of the meeting - no one in the group knew how to do minutes - so I volunteered. They were probably the best minutes the Principal had ever seen come out of a parents support meeting. And no doubt, that scared the 'layman' out of the ladies....

To cut a long story short - parents supports groups are not places for productive parents. They are places for women who don't feel they have any power or importance - to feel important. Now, granted - there will be exceptions, and there are! But, those exceptions are few and far between.... which is sad, because the level of creativity and entrepreneurial skills needed by schools (especially state schools) will increase as the level of state funding for schooling is trending toward Antarctica.

I worked out pretty quickly that if I want my daughter and her school friends to experience fantastic awe-inspiring events - I need to put them on myself! And that my friends is exactly what I do. And then, I invite the kids with the COMMI Mums to come along - their faces reek of envy, surprise, and wonder. And I send them home with the best goody bag they've experienced in the last two years - and I wave them off with a "look forward to your next parents support group event!".