I Started Taking PTO The First Week Of School & It Saved Me

When my oldest started school, the first week was all excitement and adrenaline — a new backpack, first day of school photos, and a school-sponsored pizza party on the playground that Friday to get to know the other kindergarten families. We had been building up to the moment for so long, and finally it was here!

But between last-minute back-to-school shopping, finding new shoes because my son said the ones I had ready for him “felt weird,” and ensuring we had a perfect back-to-school photo on that first morning, I felt a lot of pressure to get everything done and get it done quickly, a sharp shift from the lazier pace that dominated summer.

It all felt rushed and hectic, despite all of the excitement, and despite all of the preparation I’d done throughout the summer. And while my husband helps by physically taking our kids to school, he’s largely unaware of where I keep their uniforms and, well, when the first day of school even is. The mental load falls to mom.

So the next year, I took PTO the week school started. And what a difference it makes.

I do a lot throughout the summer so that I’ll be prepared when the first week comes. I make sure all of my kids’ health forms are delivered to the pediatrician’s office. Leading up to Prime Day, I make lists of what the kids need in terms of supplies (the school sends out a list, everything from a certain type of folder to Clorox wipes for the classroom), and I get as much as I can in bulk so I can distribute glue sticks and pencils between the kids’ backpacks.

Then, a note on my calendar reminds me the backpacks my kids like go on sale in late July, so I sit everyone down so they can pick out which character or style they’ll carry this year.

In August, I spend a Saturday morning in the school cafeteria at our school’s uniform exchange, making sure each of my kids has enough polo shirts and khakis in their size for the year so we don’t have to buy everything new.

But still, inevitably, during that first week I’ll realize they need new lunch containers because they lost all of the reusable pouches I bought last year, someone has grown out of their gym shoes, and someone comes home on the second day and informs me that *everyone* in their class has headphones for computer class and they need them, too.

When that week rolls around, it feels really good to be able to focus on just my parenting role, not any other role outside of the house. I have time to fill out their apple-shaped chalkboards after scouring the junk drawers muttering we must have chalk somewhere and grilling my children about what they want to be when they grow up so we can fill out all of the blank spaces.

Last year, my preschooler told me to write that he wanted to be a T-Rex. Imagine if I’d been too busy to write that on a chalkboard and take a photograph I’ll display at his high school graduation?

Back-to-school is a big transition for kids, and I like knowing that I’m there for them in a big way the week of. We have a little more time to talk through what the new year might be like and cook their favorite dinner the night before. We can transition our bedtimes a little earlier and squeeze in one final afternoon at the pool or ice cream outing to say a proper goodbye to summer.

It’s not necessarily the most fun week to take vacation days — I’d rather spend those days on an actual family vacation or save them for the inevitable unexpected times I need to keep sick kids home from school — but it feels like one of the most important.

Now, by the time the second week of school rolls around, my kids head off on the bus, my husband goes to work, and I take one extra morning of PTO for me — to do absolutely nothing.

Lauren Davidson is a Pittsburgh-based writer and editor focusing on parenting, arts and culture, and weddings. She has worked at newspapers and magazines in New England and western Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with degrees in English and French. She lives with her editor husband, four energetic kids, and one affectionate cat. Follow her on Twitter @laurenmylo.