The Ultimate Mommyish Guide To End Of Year Teacher Gifts

I feel for teachers. Nothing sounds more awfulsauce than being locked in a room of 20 plus kids a day, trying to shovel information into their little heads while simultaneously giving them lessons on how not to suck, especially if their parents forgot to do it at home. I’d love to believe that my child is the lone angel among seven-year-old demons, but I am no fool, and I’ve seen how she gets around her stupid little friends. It’s for this reason that I typically throw gift cards of all denominations and varieties at her teachers.

It’s my way of saying, “I’m sorry that the world sees you as a glorified babysitter, and I’m sorry if my child was, in any way, responsible for the smell of daiquiri on your breath.”

But after this year, what with the beginning-of-year gift, the Christmas gift, and the Teacher Appreciation Week gift, I’m starting to feel a little tapped out, and since my kid’s teacher was also kind of a tool all year, I’m wondering when it’s appropriate to stop doing this, and whether or not an end-of-year gift is standard. According to Pinterest it certainly is, but I’m beginning to suspect that a disproportionate amount of pinners are high on PCP after seeing gifts like this:

Oh look! It’s just what no one wanted!

As a side note, I will always get teachers I don’t particularly like gifts anyway because I don’t know their lives. Maybe I only interacted with her on bad days. Maybe she had a crappy year. My child is alive, educated, and perfectly happy so yeah, I think that her teacher’s douchery can be excused and I will offer the olive branch of The Olive Garden never ending pasta bowl to her in gift card form and breathe a sigh of relief that my year with her is doneskies.

I know I’ve got at least a few years of this left, and for now I plan on sticking to my current plan: the room mom always gets a list of the teacher’s likes and dislikes, and I choose a store or restaurant off of that list and get a $20 gift card to that location, presented with a note of thanks.

I know a lot of our Mommyish readers are also teachers, so who better to ask than all of you about navigating the minefield that is teacher gift etiquette? How long must we do the song-and-dance of guilty gift giving? And who gets a gift? The pull-out teacher? The poor, dead-eyed bus driver? What about the real heroes of the school-the lunch staff? Does the gym teacher get a present? What do you really want as a teacher gift? Because we for damn sure know it isn’t some dumb homemade cup.

And don’t say “Anything extra is appreciated” because we all know that that’s bullshit and teachers deserve treats.

So this is your chance to tell we idiot parents what you really want. Don’t hold back.

What do you think?

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(Image: Pinterest)