Parenting 101, anyone?

So today we had parent-teacher conferences. Wow. If I learned anything today, it's this: money is indeed the root of all evil-or at least the root of a great deal of crappy parenting. Do you know that a large number of students in our school don't live with their parents? I'm not talking about foster kids or even boarding house kids. No, a large number of students at our school live in separate houses from their parents, with a maid/nanny and driver to serve as guardians-and here, maids/nannies and drivers are SERVANTS, therefore not socially allowed to hold any sort of authority over the children. Why is this? Because the parents, who are insanely wealthy, don't have time to spend worrying about their kids so they get them their own houses in Bukit Sentul (most of these parents live an hour away in Jakarta), send the kids to our school and go about their happy, semi-childless lives. Sure, the kids have everything they could want, materialistically, but they have nothing else. It is so incredibly sad. Don't get me wrong-I did meet a few great parents today, but there were some really scary ones. Another sad thing-I have approximately 95 students. I saw the parents of 11.

Anyway, this blog will be temporarily put on hold for the next week as its, uh, bloggers are enjoying some of the beachfront paradise side of life in Indonesia. We'll be spending our week-long quarter break (YES, I survived my first quarter of teaching and I am NOT twitching in a corner of some asylum!) in beautiful Bali. A perk, I admit, to living here. Still not sure that makes up for the homesickness and whatnot, but it's worth a try, eh? Anyway, this blog will resume its semi-normally scheduled programming when we return.