What blew up your parent chat last year?
Witches be talking
Happy 2026 witches, question mark?
First, for anyone curious for an update on my mom’s very dramatic ending to 2025, she is doing better, but has yet to come home after leaving the house in an ambulance almost a month ago. She is irritatingly/frighteningly unconcerned about what went down, or what will come next! I know that a lot of you out there have had your parents fall like a Jenga tower lately and I hope you have support /space / people who can let you talk shit about your aging parents if that makes you feel better. It sure does for me.
I am still pulling what was left of my brain back together after what went down so I thought this would be a fun time to look at some of the answers to one of the Evil Witches poll questions I sent out.
Since I sent this out in October there were a lot of answers about Halloween and KPop Demon Hunters. I got three times as many entries about ICE and Evanston’s District 65 schools than you see below. I want to give a special shout out to the witches who responded that they are happily chat-free (go you!) and hugs to the witches who said they are chat-free and feel out of the loop. I hope you get access to an informative, nontoxic, non-overwhelming witchy chat soon.
What is one of the latest topics to take over your group parents/school chat? (It doesn’t have to be juicy.)
At the beginning of the school year the new principal was like “you have to put this card on your dashboard to pick up in a car and you have to carry this other one in your hand to pick up on foot and also the first week we’re going to check your IDs” and I don’t know about the car parents because I’m an on foot parent but we just didn’t do it and nobody ever said anything about it again
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Ooh, the logistics around having a high school freshman who doesn’t drive and who wants to go to the football game wearing spirit gear, come home after halftime to change for the dance, get to a friend’s house to take pictures, and get to the dance, get picked up and taken to McDonalds and then back home before all parents melt into a puddle of exhaustion and overwhelm.
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Ohhhh the (very brief) use of a high quality stop-motion animated kids’ movie clip in an after-school science club (in which they sometimes do stop-motion animation) while the children arrived and ate their snacks, and how one dad thought it sounded a bit lazy to be using screen-time in the session. The subchats were the most enjoyable part really.
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Someone said the “n word” (4th grade), the Latin American Heritage Dance performance song for 2-4 grade was “I Like It”. If the teacher knows she is going to take time off, she should tell the parents/why are teachers allowed to take so much time off during the school year now? ALWAYS: why can’t people handle a pick up/drop off line??!!??
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The unfairness, inhumaneness, and bad pedagogy of missing one worksheet in middle school having at outsize impact on the grade. Also, why are moms expected to get middle-school cheerleading uniforms washed and drip-dried overnight after the last football game so they can be turned in the NEXT DAY?????
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We are trying to decide if we, the PTA, want to continue paying for a physical education enrichment program called Recess 101, or if we want to stop, and pay for like 18 other programs instead. It’s not juicy, but it is a question of $62,000 per year, which is a lot for a PTA to field.
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lots of talk about school board elections. juicy only in a very niche way which honestly I find very meaningful. the national stuff is so horrible but it makes me feel good to know about our school board. I’m nurturing a longstanding grudge against our school board president.
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The moms of babies who are SUPER anti technology/cell phones for teens but yet have NO EXPERIENCE with the situation. But they’re happy to preach to anyone who will listen about how technology is ruining children and shame parents who make other choices.
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One of the ladies in my mum’s group came to the park the other day with her 10 month old and told us she was a surprise 16 weeks pregnant, so will have a newborn and 15 month old in April! I wish her all the best but GIRL this is doing life on hard mode
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How to support families in the community who are scared/in need due to ICE’s stupid presence. Also, unrelatedly, how math is taught differently now compared to when we were kids, and some parents are extremely frustrated about that.
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An anonymous person on the PTO accused the longtime president of the school fundraising board of inappropriately using funds. It was both untrue and done SO unnecessarily dramatically with a letter to the principal, big eyeroll.
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The anti-ice volunteers don’t like being mean mugged by the staff who are literally being skeptical of random (white) strangers at (a mostly non-white) school because some of the other white strangers might be actual ice!!
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OMG everyone is up in arms about how much our after school care program costs. IT COSTS NEXT TO NOTHING. EVERYONE CHILL TF OUT. (Literally, it costs £15/dat, which gets the kid three hours of care and a healthy snack.)
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Our first grade teacher left a couple weeks ago and there’s been a lot of drama about the subs and waiting for our new teacher’s first day. The upheaval for the routine oriented kids has been a mess.
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The school chat is mostly people asking questions that are ALREADY ANSWERED IN THE HANDBOOK and it fills me with rage. Why are you asking a thread with 86 people on it what day jeans day is??????????????? WHY!?!?!?
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Whether the parents of the most dinosaur-obsessed kid should buy a former theme-park stegosaurus to put in their backyard.
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School Board commissioner who unsuccessfully fought to have a lawsuit settlement sealed in which he had to pay pack in fees to his personal business that he used for things other than the promised services.
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Whose problem is it if our middle schoolers loiter at the Starbucks across the street from school-- is it the parents for letting them hang out there unattended or is Starbucks who doesn’t want them around?
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One of the girls got a tattoo part of which is upside down. Because it’s not fixable we’re all trying to persuade her it looks fine and isn’t upside down. But it is in fact upside down.
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My youngest just transitioned to middle school, and the parents who are new to middle school are unhinged about the lack of contact with teachers. They want to be very involved.
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That many students in our community can’t read well and that standards are low in our school district. Also, that middle school teachers don’t respond to parent emails.
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whether your kids life is over if they don’t take algebra in 7th grade vs. 8 grade. sigh. my kid goes to Lab and will NOT be doing algebra in the 7th grade.
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Three kids logged into some other kids Time Tables Rockstar accounts to inflate their points and then used their points to buy stuff the kids didn’t want
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it’s pretty boring. We had a chat recently about AI. People are either resigned to it taking over or are bullish/excited about it, which depressed me.
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Parents chat involves revenge on the air bnb host who complained about our leaving crumbs(!) in her rental.
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whether and where to get swim lessons, some griping about people timing their kid’s birthday parties right on top of everyone else’s nap time
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99% is confusion over homework now that it’s the first year the kids have to note their assignments themselves AND do them on google classroom.
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Our school district is undergoing a massive consolidation/school closure/boundary change process and it’s dominating SO MANY discussions.
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Rescheduling a final soccer match - just cancel it! Also husbands delegating texting to their wives - did you lose your thumbs?!
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Sadly, it is how our once amazing public school system has started to crumble due to years of underfunding, among other things.
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my husband’s, since he’s on the band parent council: local bus doesn’t want kids bringing large saxophones on board
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Our school district is redrawing boundaries and moving magnet programs to be more segregated and less equitable.
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Are we trying any of these one-day camps that are available for the many random days off of school the kids have
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I’m on the PTA board and the president and communications coordinator are feuding over repeated typos in flyers.
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How frustrating it can be to let your kids have full control over the interior decorating of their own spaces.
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The drama with my friends daughter’s boyfriend. She’s a junior in high school and we do not like this boyfriend.
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I’m MIA on the parent chat, but I fear they are wondering why my 5-year-old can’t stop punching his friends
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Very boring. That they’re removing dioramas at a near by natural history museum & how we feel about it.
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Performative anti-racism by white PTA moms; not having clothes and boots that fit for the surprise rain
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A neighborhood escape artist dog that needs to be rehomed (but not to any of our homes), Prop 50
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How to sign up for the parent teacher conferences next week since the Google doc was locked. 🙄
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the pizza day online order form wasn’t working and the deadline was fast approaching - panic!
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how to ask your mexican coworker if they have a plan for if / when ICE arrives at the workplace
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Commiserating over the misery of swim classes and the pros and cons of all the local options
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How much freedom to give elementary schoolers to roam, both in the neighborhood and online
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Vaccines. It’s so dumb that the brain worm has fucked things up so much so quickly.
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Nap dropping vs the day care’s alleged policy that they have to keep napping
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School drop-off and how people are incapable of using their thinking brains
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Pre-K waitlists and strategies for getting off aforementioned waitlists
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Boys playing too rough in first grade (mine among them, unfortunately)
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mushroom foraging, I live in the hippy PNW (the normal eating kind)
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The upcoming school disco and how late our kindergarteners can stay
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How to support fighting ICE in between regular life commitments.
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Middle school team sport cuts and handling kid disappointment.
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A Costco recently opened in our town, so what we bought there
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How our citizen families can support our noncitizen families.
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neighbor calling cops on friend’s seemingly unattended child
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Whether to get a landline/Tin Can/some other home phone
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Getting sitters to get to friend’s band playing at bar
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where we are going on our kid-free getaway in February
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stupid exes and their terrible coparenting fails
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Teenage Girls are mean & teenage boys are turds.
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birthday parties. it is always birthday parties.
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That the fundraising options at the school suck
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Food we like from Aldi. Our shitty alderman.
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lunch at school: how to make kids eat it??
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Bradley Cooper & Mandy Moore’s new faces
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volunteering at the fall festival (ugh)
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Our children’s fascination with WWII.
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How annoying back to school night was
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SNAP and how fucked the world feels.
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Doing a pressed glass class together
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How many coffees we have normally
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six seven and AI brain rot stuff
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Having newly minted teen drivers
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toddlers being absolutely feral
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Fat bear week really popped off
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Stainless steel vs. plastic
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Menopause and smartphones.
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Taylor Swift’s new album
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Planning trips to Disney
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little league--boring.
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The Hunting Wives??
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Good old lice.
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Fake IDs
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Sleep
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Someone posted a cookie recipe w chickpeas in it, I called bs, then someone else posted a black bean brownie recipe. Barf
End credits
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While I have you: Evil Witch/education/ADHD expert Sarah Wheeler is hosting an online workshop Choosing a School for Your Neurodivergent Child Tuesday, January 20, 2026 from 12:00–1:15 PM PST for $25. Expect a lot of compassionate expertise.
Finally, this is a question I may not cover til later this year but while it’s top of mind: if you have a child/children whose birthday falls annoyingly close to the holidays, what strategies/philosophies do you employ to make sure each thing gets honored? (You would not believe the bottom of the barrel scraping I am doing right now for my January 10 husband.)
One witchy thing
This top comment:
On this Instagram post:
(And this follow up is very satisfying.)
Mine right now: 5th grade basketball practice logistics. Reassuringly boring.
Ours right now if full of parents wondering why the teacher is sending less homework home than she said she would. To which I said "Maybe let's let that one slide." It's kindergarten. Who cares. Sorry if your kid won't get into Yale now.