7 Surefire Ways to Get Blacklisted from the PTA
You hate the PTA. Admit it. You’d rather clean out the drain than volunteer for field day or bake muffins for all those ungrateful teachers. But someone’s got to do it, right? Much as you cannot stand the thought of one more silent auction, you don’t want to be that mom – the slacker who doesn’t care enough about the social and educational future of her children to get her lazy ass down to the cafeteria for the float committee meeting.
Instead of actually having to say no, wouldn’t it be easier to get kicked right out of the PTA? Now you can. I can help.
Here are 7 surefire techniques for getting banned from the PTA forever:
#1 – Pass out peanuts. 
Peanuts in public schools are like anthrax in Washington. Distribute peanut M&Ms to the kids in your charge at the petting zoo and you’ll never organize another field trip.
#2 – Get a job.
This is a drastic step, but if you miss enough of those 10:am meetings, you’ll never be asked to join another committee. Bonus: for this technique to work, you don’t actually have to get a job, but merely convince others that you have.
#3 – Botch the bulletin board.
You will eventually be asked to create an adorable bulletin board made of QTips or stunning botanical scenery for the second grade musical. Creating a horrid piece of artwork should be easy so if you’re in a hurry to get the boot, volunteer for this.
#4 – Show off your tramp stamp.
There is nothing to get mouths a-gaping like a little ink below the waist line. Strategic use of low rise jeans can insulate you from years of fall carnival shifts, spaghetti socials, and any other event that would put you in proximity of any Mr. PTAs.
#5 – Buy the wrong color.
It doesn’t matter what it is – balloons, paper plates, napkins – go against the committee’s ruling on a particular nuance of forest green and you can kiss your PTA career goodbye.
#6 – Piss off the Queen.
Work with your personality to find the most effective way to enrage the PTA Queen. It’s important to understand that PTA Queens often operate outside the official hierarchy of the PTA system. Learn who they are, irritate them, and go on with your merry non-PTA existence.
#7 – Embezzle the funds.
This is perhaps the most drastic step of all, but in many cases can result not only in your being shunned from the PTA, but every other well-meaning, time-sucking volunteer organization in town.
Keep all these in mind next time you stroll your happy little self down to the PTA meeting. Because really, aren’t they all a little easier than just saying no?
Have you been blacklisted from the PTA? We need your tips! Please help your fellow moms by sharing in the comments below!
More of My PTA Experience:
How Many Parents Does It Take to Make the 5th Grade Homecoming Float? – In a moment of weakness I volunteered for the 5th grade homecoming float committee. I know – the 5th grade has a homecoming float?
PTA Challenged – The day before the Thanksgiving musical, after the dress rehearsal, I got some feedback that maybe my son’s turkey costume wasn’t exactly the best in show.
Room Mother at Last – No one believed I could do it, but this post proves I did. And once is enough, right?
Image Credit: Marlon Hammes, Flickr
by Lela Davidson on April 8, 2009
in Favorites, Suburban Bliss
I had to give you some linky-love on this #31DBBB post! That was awesome!
All good ideas. I will have to work on that.
this is funny shit.
You can get black listed from the PTA by dropping the F bomb in an adults only setting. Trust me. ;)
This is hilarious!
Thanks for stopping by mine! And glad someone is enjoying my tunes, too-I often forget to turn my volume on!!
I’ve been dying to try the Green Bean-it is good?
Not just peanuts, bring any homemade food to a class party and it’s out of there. Oh wait, I like that. I never would have gotten around to actually making something, and now I don’t have to feel guilty about it!
or you can just be a divorcee like me. Seems a lot of women assume that now that I’m single, I apparently want to have sex with their husbands no matter that some of them have huge bellies and the personality of a gold fish.
This was hilarious. I’m with bernthis-being a divorcee gets you blacklisted from just about everything. Bonus for me cause I got out of miserable marriage and having to volunteer for anything at either of my kids’ schools. They act like I’m invisible.
Make your kid’s teacher cry. They just love it when I do that. I don’t intentionally do it, but when they are a dumbass and I feel compelled to point it out, they usually cry. Then they talk about you for months and avoid you like the plague.
#8… direct traffic the wrong way in the pick-up line!
Parents call the office to tattle on you, and the PTA squad gets VERRRY irritated that their precious system is messed up.
Just hilarious. I had a part time job so I was already a PTA mom to be watched but I took a job (putting together the school directory) that no one wanted. Then I made the mistake of saving them over $100 on the printing costs from the previous year (maybe someone was doing a little #7). They hated me and left me alone after that.
You can always talk about how your “condition” is being controlled with medication at parent teacher conferences.
That was so funny…or you could be like me and have 4 kids and then you will be too darn tired to care if you are “one of those moms”. Seriously I leave the butt kissing, do everything, plan everything to all the “good” moms;)
I found your blog from “The Jobes” blog!!
Thanks for the LOL! My kids are only 4 and 2, so I’m a few years from the PTA. But, I’ve avoided most any responsibility with my MOMS Club, so I must be on to something!
Mommy – Dude! I was PRESIDENT of the MOMS Club. But not the PTA. That’s my line in the sand! Good luck!
I love your blog; I got it from another mom. This is one of the things that make a crappy days better. I have kids that are 3 and 1 so I don’t have the PTA issues yet, but, I did try to do the mom group thing and decided that it was really for moms that have personal issues and are making their kids an extension of the fell good moment.
I have to agree with your reader that said that divorced women are a threat in my case my children’s father and I just decided after both coming from really bad first marriages that marriage really was not needed. When the mom’s group found this out I have not been asked back. Make for a better day for me.
Shannon – Thank you so much! That means a lot to me, that you’re enjoying the blog! As for the Moms with the capital M, if they don’t want you, of course you don’t want them. I hope you’ll come by more often.
Using Allergies to make a point that would encourage parents to use peanut products to get kicked out of the PTA- is really NOT FUNNY at all. How funny is it when you child has fatal allergies to common food products? Sit in the car when a child is having a reaction as you are racing to the ER hoping you can make it there before their last breath. NOT FUNNY YOU SAY? Find something else to use to get kicked out of the PTA, I know, write crap on how to kill kids with severe allergies…OR how to get kids to drink poison.
This is REALLY irresponsible journalism!
If I took offense to every joke that was even somewhat relatable to me, I’d be constantly offended AND I’d take it out on everyone. Complete strangers even. On their blog.
Many, many things are “NOT FUNNY,” yet I’d rather live in a world with humor than in a world without it. Ever heard a “dead baby” joke? They’re terrible. Not funny at all. I detest them. But I’d never be so uptight as to admonish someone about it when it’s their right to write whatever the heck they want to on THEIR blog.
Relax. And as hypocritical as this is: try, even for a day, letting go of the desire to control things that are totally out of your jurisdiction. Try choosing to blow unimportant things off and moving on before you get all worked up about it. It’s sure helped me.
Melissa, how very kind of you to say! I will withhold my opinion of dead baby jokes.
Now, for the important question… did you MAKE those tissue paper thingies shown on your blog for The Bean’s Bday? Because I’m going to a baby shower this weekend….
Lela, thanks for appreciating my brand of hypocrisy! WRT the big ol’ poufs: yes, I did make them! I used this tutorial: http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/tissue-paper-pom-poms-how-to and enlisted my little brother and his girlfriend to help out. The trick is “poufing” them out evenly. I think I used one or two more sheets of tissue paper than the tutorial suggests, also. That helped with the poufing. Oh and, you’ve gotta get BIG tissue paper if you want big poufs. I found just the right size at the Dollar Tree, which was great ’cause the tissue at Michael’s was hecka expensive. Good luck!