Reason number 1,113,426 for why I'm a bad mom

We don't ski.  We don't go to Disneyland.  We don't go to farms and watch baby cows be born.  We don't go to Sacramento. We don't go to the beach, at least not in a long time.

I'm a terrible mother.

All of my daughter's friends families, and even some of my 2 year old son's friends families do these things, or so I learned this morning when I dropped of my kids at preschool. 

As my son trotted into his preschool class, I heard one of his teacher's praise his classmate Noah's t-shirt.

"What an adorable T-shirt, Noah!  It's from Disneyland, right?"  asked Teacher Lucy.

"Yes, we went to Disneyland last weekend," smiled Noah's Dad.  "Noah was even tall enough to ride the Matterhorn!" 

Noah held out his shirt and beamed.  Happily, my son A was already busy playing with the toy trains in the classroom and didn't notice.  I quickly ran off before my 5-year-old daughter caught wind of the conversation.  Fortunately she had been preoccupied watching a baby in a stroller at the time.

Dropping off my daughter in her classroom was only worse.  I happened, unfortunately, to take the time to read the letter on the wall which described what the pre-K class had done the day before.

"Monday, March 31, 2008:  Today we discussed what fun things the children did over the weekend. 

Daniel:   I went skiing.  I rode the ski lift!

David:  I went to Tahoe.  I played in the snow!

Sam:  I went to ski school.  It was great!

Samantha:  I went to a farm in Sacramento and watched baby cows be born.  They were twins!

Emma:  I went to the beach.  And next week we are going to Italy for two weeks.

Margaret:  I went skiing.... "

And so it went, out of the 16 kids in the school, 13 of the 16 had left town for the weekend.  As to my daughter:

"E:  I went to my brother A's friend Adam's house for dinner and we watched 'Annie' the movie!"

Oh, the shame.  Not only do we not travel, we watch TV!  (Although, I think 'Annie' is pretty good.)

I was almost crying as I made my way back to my car.  I called up my husband on the way to work, and he told me that I shouldn't worry what other people do.  He told me that this is only going to get worse when we get to kindergarten. He reminded me that I have always said that I don't enjoy skiing.  And then he emailed me a helpful list of ideas for what we can do with the family in the weekend.

But I'm not short on ideas.  I'm just short on motivation. I'm short on energy.  And, quite frankly, looking at the prospect of paying for private school for the next 9 years (per child), I'm short on cash. 

Which is reason number one billion two million three hundred thousand six for why I feel like a bad, bad mother.

Original post to Silicon Valley Moms Blog.