This Mom Ranting About School Theme Days Is All Of Us

Mom’s hilarious video points out how awful school “theme days” are for parents

Mornings as a parent are hectic. Trying to get your kids out the door for either school or daycare while also getting yourself ready for work or sitting on the couch eating bonbons (I kid) is a whirlwind. Most days, we’re feeling accomplished if they leave the house with matching socks and brushed teeth. That’s why when teachers send home flyers detailing a week’s worth of theme days we want to punch things.

Luckily, this hilarious mom gets it and her viral video about how ridiculous theme days are will have you nodding your head.

Mom, singer, writer, and public speaker Melissa Radke struck a chord with her Facebook following of over 100,000 with a video rant about the awfulness of school theme days. It’s been shared over 190,000 times, and it’s easy to see why. This woman is speaking the truth.

Radke waves a flyer for her kids’ “Red Ribbon Week,” an “alcohol, tobacco, drug violence prevention awareness campaign.” She explains that the goal of the campaign is “to encourage children of all ages to be drug free throughout their lives.” She them crumples the paper saying, “that is a lie” over and over.

The actual goal, she says, is “to drive moms crazy with different outfits every single day.” And to that we say, A-FREAKING-MEN. When I see these flyers come home, my eyes narrow and smoke starts coming out my ears because I can already see the writing on the wall. Not only will I need to locate certain theme-related clothing items or trinkets, but my daughter will have specific requests to match her friends stupid theme outfits. And my son will decide at the last minute that whatever I’ve painstakingly assembled for him is not what he had in mind and I will want to set all the theme day clothes on fire and walk away from my life as a parent.

Because holy shit, schools. We have enough to do. We do not need more to do. Please stop giving us homework in the form of fucking theme days that teach our children literally nothing except fun ways to make their parents insane.

And Radke totally agrees; the kids don’t really learn anything from these “drug free” or whatever the hell kind of theme weeks. They would learn from a comprehensive program teaching them about staying drug free. What the frick will they learn about resisting the pull of the pot drug by wearing a tie-dyed shirt on Wednesday? Please, schools. We’re on to you. Cut the shit.

Radke cackles as she imagines the teachers conspiring to drive her nuts by making her go to Target to find said tie-dyed shirt. Or to scramble for something red or to facilitate “crazy hair and crazy socks day” or to wear neon. “Because if you’ll think toward the future, maybe like when a child is offered drugs, say when they’re like 20, and they become drug-addicted, then their parents would say maybe if you’d dressed brighter maybe none of this would’ve happened.”

Lol forever.

Her video is funny, but her point is an important one. Sending parents scrambling for costume parts and trying to remember to keep up with one more stupid task in the morning accomplishes nothing of value. Our kids have a little fun, but no real message sinks in. All it does is give us more to do. On top of a giant pile of shit to do.

So please, schools. Hear our plea. Theme weeks (and crack) are whack. Give us parents a break.

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