;)
Thursday
May142009
Dial-An-Enabler
Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 2:03PM
I am one of those annoying people who still hasn't moved into the 20th century and gotten call waiting. I hardly ever check my voice mail and, until a week ago, I didn't have a cell phone. Because I just don't care enough.
I only have a land line because I live 1400 miles away from anyone who matters to me, and I have really kick ass long distance. My kids' gramma decided to lose her mind get all philanthropic with it and join the Peace Corp in Africa, and my one true love moved to Costa Rica for the free mangoes and monkeys. So I have to keep a landline, but I don't have to love it.
In the rare event that my phone rings, I know with 85% certainty who will be on the line. It is always either Big Brothers, the guy I work for, one redneck mommy, or the people trying to collect the parking ticket that I just don't seem to ever be able to pay. If it's after nine, it's my sister in law and if it's while I'm gone, it's The Donor. He always calls when I'm out, or when my fat ass is sitting on the phone so I don't hear it, or when I'm, well, um, getting the bats out of the belfry, if you know what I mean. This is noteworthy only because every time I don't answer, he assumes we've all gone down in a blaze of glory and with each recurrent call, his panic grows until the entire fire department shows up at my door. Or worse, my mother in law, at my neighbor's.
Note for all of you husbands: Never get pissy with your wife and send your mother to find her and handle it for you. That woman is just waiting for a reason to get all up in your wife's grill as it is. These things tend to end not well. For anyone, mostly you.
I mention all of this only because my phone has started ringing. On an almost daily basis. The number is always the same and every time I see it, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I used to jump every time it popped up on the caller id. I used to panic. I thought something terrible had happened and I thanked god that I am lucky enough to be home all day, because what if I didn't get that call? What if I wasn't available? What if I couldn't save the day?
But after enough time, after getting fooled over and over again, now when I see that number I find my eyes rolling back into my head. I glare at the id box. I talk to the ceiling. I get pissy.
One shouldn't feel that way when their children's school calls.
It started out innocently enough. One day, someone had forgotten a lunch, and god forbid my over-privileged, excessively nourished children go without a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Another day, one kid couldn't find the other kid and how could I expect a child who plays outside all day every day to be able to find his way down a straight path from the school to our house by himself? One day one kid had a headache and who in their right mind thinks a child can endure the horrors of long division with a throbbing temple?
Can you tell I'm a little jaded now?
I used to rush to the school to rescue them. I used to run into their classrooms, burst through the door, sweep them up and off to home where popsicles and Pokemon reruns awaiting them on the couch. I used to ride large white horses through the doors of the school, bearing the errant lunch or science project or class hamster and save the day. Now, I'm starting to embrace that age-old mantra, "Suck it up, fool."
They call me All. The. Time. They call when they forget their homework, they call when they want to go to Tyler's house, they call when they don't like their lunch, they call when they get invited to a birthday party six weeks from now. And every time, they call me from the school's office line, so I fucking HAVE to answer it. Because the one time I don't will be the one time my kid gets beat up on the playground and I actually *have* to fix it.
I can't imagine that these children constantly hounding the secretary for her phone is a fun way to spend her day, so I went into the office to figure out why the hell these kids seem to have unlimited access to her phone. I went in ready to tell her to knock it the fuck off, that those children and fine and she's getting played for a fool. And then I saw it. A phone. In a cubby. JUST for students.
Oh dear god in heaven, you have got to be kidding me.
When I was a kid, 8 million years ago, there was no phone. I had to be bleeding out of no less that two orifices to get to call home. If I forgot my homework, I couldn't call my mom; I had to call on a higher power. I remember standing in front of my locker in 6th grade literally praying to God that he help my homework surface. Not the most effective system for locker-organization, turns out. If I forgot my lunch, or my homework, I was scah-rewed. And I didn't forget it the next time.
I just wonder what happened between then and now that we can't, we won't, we refuse to let these kids fail occasionally. Why can't my son, who had his lunch packed for him, put in the car for him, and driven to the school with him go hungry if he cannot take .05 seconds out of his morning to put the handle in his hand before he steps out of the car? What is so terrible about making him sit at his desk over lunch and start again on the homework he not only didn't do, but left untouched on his desk in his room? Why the hell do they have a phone line for these kids to use at their discretion?
Because it works, that's why.
Because every time it rings, I answer it. Every time a sheepish voice says "I forgot...." I hop in the car and bring it to him. Every time that voice says it doesn't feel good, I go get it and bring it home. Even when I threaten them with death or worse, loss of YuGiOh cards if they dare call me one more time from that damn phone, even when I sit them down and explain consequence, responsibility and the concept of crying wolf, I still rescue them. Because, in the end, I feel like it's my job. I feel like I'm supposed to because I am a stay at home mother and so I've convinced myself that I have to be on call 24/7 for these people. And though I think it's the right choice for me, for us, I think that in this sense, I am teaching them nothing. I will never tell them to wrap their sweater around their waist and get back to science class because they were dumb enough to put their maxi-pad on upside down, and they'll keep doing it because they know they can. I will never let them go hungry at school, just because I spent 16 years hungry and I don't want them to know what that feels like, and they know it.. They know that mom is over-compensating for something and they've got her right where they want her.
And so, of course, I blame the school and the Enabling Phone when really, I just need to let them have one day in front of a locker with stained pants and a grumbling stomach and God.
I only have a land line because I live 1400 miles away from anyone who matters to me, and I have really kick ass long distance. My kids' gramma decided to lose her mind get all philanthropic with it and join the Peace Corp in Africa, and my one true love moved to Costa Rica for the free mangoes and monkeys. So I have to keep a landline, but I don't have to love it.
In the rare event that my phone rings, I know with 85% certainty who will be on the line. It is always either Big Brothers, the guy I work for, one redneck mommy, or the people trying to collect the parking ticket that I just don't seem to ever be able to pay. If it's after nine, it's my sister in law and if it's while I'm gone, it's The Donor. He always calls when I'm out, or when my fat ass is sitting on the phone so I don't hear it, or when I'm, well, um, getting the bats out of the belfry, if you know what I mean. This is noteworthy only because every time I don't answer, he assumes we've all gone down in a blaze of glory and with each recurrent call, his panic grows until the entire fire department shows up at my door. Or worse, my mother in law, at my neighbor's.
Note for all of you husbands: Never get pissy with your wife and send your mother to find her and handle it for you. That woman is just waiting for a reason to get all up in your wife's grill as it is. These things tend to end not well. For anyone, mostly you.
I mention all of this only because my phone has started ringing. On an almost daily basis. The number is always the same and every time I see it, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I used to jump every time it popped up on the caller id. I used to panic. I thought something terrible had happened and I thanked god that I am lucky enough to be home all day, because what if I didn't get that call? What if I wasn't available? What if I couldn't save the day?
But after enough time, after getting fooled over and over again, now when I see that number I find my eyes rolling back into my head. I glare at the id box. I talk to the ceiling. I get pissy.
One shouldn't feel that way when their children's school calls.
It started out innocently enough. One day, someone had forgotten a lunch, and god forbid my over-privileged, excessively nourished children go without a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Another day, one kid couldn't find the other kid and how could I expect a child who plays outside all day every day to be able to find his way down a straight path from the school to our house by himself? One day one kid had a headache and who in their right mind thinks a child can endure the horrors of long division with a throbbing temple?
Can you tell I'm a little jaded now?
I used to rush to the school to rescue them. I used to run into their classrooms, burst through the door, sweep them up and off to home where popsicles and Pokemon reruns awaiting them on the couch. I used to ride large white horses through the doors of the school, bearing the errant lunch or science project or class hamster and save the day. Now, I'm starting to embrace that age-old mantra, "Suck it up, fool."
They call me All. The. Time. They call when they forget their homework, they call when they want to go to Tyler's house, they call when they don't like their lunch, they call when they get invited to a birthday party six weeks from now. And every time, they call me from the school's office line, so I fucking HAVE to answer it. Because the one time I don't will be the one time my kid gets beat up on the playground and I actually *have* to fix it.
I can't imagine that these children constantly hounding the secretary for her phone is a fun way to spend her day, so I went into the office to figure out why the hell these kids seem to have unlimited access to her phone. I went in ready to tell her to knock it the fuck off, that those children and fine and she's getting played for a fool. And then I saw it. A phone. In a cubby. JUST for students.
Oh dear god in heaven, you have got to be kidding me.
When I was a kid, 8 million years ago, there was no phone. I had to be bleeding out of no less that two orifices to get to call home. If I forgot my homework, I couldn't call my mom; I had to call on a higher power. I remember standing in front of my locker in 6th grade literally praying to God that he help my homework surface. Not the most effective system for locker-organization, turns out. If I forgot my lunch, or my homework, I was scah-rewed. And I didn't forget it the next time.
I just wonder what happened between then and now that we can't, we won't, we refuse to let these kids fail occasionally. Why can't my son, who had his lunch packed for him, put in the car for him, and driven to the school with him go hungry if he cannot take .05 seconds out of his morning to put the handle in his hand before he steps out of the car? What is so terrible about making him sit at his desk over lunch and start again on the homework he not only didn't do, but left untouched on his desk in his room? Why the hell do they have a phone line for these kids to use at their discretion?
Because it works, that's why.
Because every time it rings, I answer it. Every time a sheepish voice says "I forgot...." I hop in the car and bring it to him. Every time that voice says it doesn't feel good, I go get it and bring it home. Even when I threaten them with death or worse, loss of YuGiOh cards if they dare call me one more time from that damn phone, even when I sit them down and explain consequence, responsibility and the concept of crying wolf, I still rescue them. Because, in the end, I feel like it's my job. I feel like I'm supposed to because I am a stay at home mother and so I've convinced myself that I have to be on call 24/7 for these people. And though I think it's the right choice for me, for us, I think that in this sense, I am teaching them nothing. I will never tell them to wrap their sweater around their waist and get back to science class because they were dumb enough to put their maxi-pad on upside down, and they'll keep doing it because they know they can. I will never let them go hungry at school, just because I spent 16 years hungry and I don't want them to know what that feels like, and they know it.. They know that mom is over-compensating for something and they've got her right where they want her.
And so, of course, I blame the school and the Enabling Phone when really, I just need to let them have one day in front of a locker with stained pants and a grumbling stomach and God.
Reader Comments (44)
I'd totally rescue the maxi-pad incident but the rest of it, well... Let's just say that my kids are up close and personal with God a lot and once the prayers end, they wonder why they bleeping drew the short straw to have such a laissez-faire mother. I think something to that effect is even written on their permanent folders given all their teachers have been treated to my theories on rescuing my children from their own harmless follies. That is what they mean by "Mom is a slack-ass," right?
Well, if it works for you......
All I can say is, my mom was a lot more like Kristen and I was way too scared of disappointing my teachers and making bad grades that I very rarely (once, twice?) forgot anything.
The phone in the cubby? good grief, it took an act of congress to use the phone at school and never once would one of my teachers or adminstration allow me to call home because I forgot my homework.
I already commented once but then I got an error something something...and tell me, what is this "cell phone" about which you speak? I still haven't made it that far. And I am much more of a hard ass than you, which is probably why your kids, you know, love you. :)
Lookit what a softie you are. Something tells me it's better than my "it's just a little blood. You know you're not supposed to jump on the bed, and now you know why." Not that I would (or have. repeatedly) said that, or anything.
I used to be that mom. The one who would do the rescuing. I worked nights and I spent the days tracking down someone's lunch or homework or saving them from a tummy ache that hardly ever actually existed. I ran myself ragged.
Then mommy got a day job. One where she's in a lab coat 95% of the day, playing with blood and other various bodily fluids. The instructions to the school were to call "mom" only if "dad" absolutely can't be reached.
They call me every single time. And every single time I have to back away from my blood, take off gloves, take off lab coat, wash hands, dry hands, apply hand sanitizer, go to phone, tell lady in office the girl will just have to suffer whatever terrifying problem on her own (because they don't have a phone for the kids to use and won't even hear of it if the children say "call daddy, mommy is covered in blood"). Then I can put the coat back on, glove up, and settle back down with other people's genetic carrying materials.
Not only would my mom not have brought me my lunch or homework at school, I would have been scared out of my wits to call her and tell her I forgot them. I missed the bus once and broke down in tears because I was afraid I was going to get in trouble. I was much less concerned with being late to school. A neighbor drove by and saw me, probably thought my entire family was murdered inside our house, and took pity on me. I begged her not to tell my mom, and I think she might not have, but I totally broke down and freaking told on myself!! Man, she had me whipped!!!
I know! I don't remember EVER being allowed to call home for ANY reason as a kid. Although come to think of it, I mostly would've rather been at school than at home, so scratch that. Anyhoo...we went through this with my older daughter for a while. She was constantly forgetting her homework & calling and I was constantly schlepping to school with it for her. Finally I realized that I needed to let me straight-A student get a big fat -0- on her homework and learn her lesson. And lo and behold, she DID.
Wow, what I would have given for a phone back in the day!!!!!!
Next time they call, tell them to suck it up. If its lunch, they'll find a friend to share. And if its homework, they'll learn not to forget it if they see a big fat zero. I speak from experience, having had the same phone privileges when I was the same age as your kids. The school of hard knocks works.
Seriously they have a phone for the kids, that is craziness. My son would be on it constantly telling me all his ailments and how he needed to come home so not to get anyone else sick;) He just figured out if he goes to the clinic I will come up to the school, which I am going to be putting the kibosh on because both times he was fine an hour afer we got home.
What's call waiting?
I hang my head in shame.
The last time school called I slept through it. Naturally this couldn't mean I was just "out", of course I had to be "missing". Like call the police missing. So of course they called my mother in law (ugh!) who had to leave work and go retrieve my vomiting child with all the drama of a child abandonment.
There is no hell like waking up to a ringing doorbell, and finding your MIL, the cops, and your vomit stained child at the door.
You had to be missing a limb to even get up out of your desk when I was in school. No one even dared venture into the office lest the principal scoop you up and give you a paddling. Apparently now they have students loungs complete with telephone. Oh how the times have changed.
Love this piece.
This all seems a little ridiculous. The kids have unlimited access to that phone? What the hell, man? Surely they must have to tell someone why they want to use it or something first, no? Is there a phone log or something? I just can't believe that any kid can walk up to that phone any time and call whomever they please. That's weak, man.
Why don't you just call it from home every single morning and set your phone down, still connected, the whole day? Problem solved.
Ya know, I wouldn't rescue my kids all the time. In fact, they have called before when they were "sick" and I would say, "you weren't sick this morning!" And about the 15th billion time my son got in trouble at school I told the principle he would have to stay there cause I was too busy to come and get him. Three hours later I showed up, and you know what? My son didn't get in trouble again (much) for a long time after that!
I have long maintained that "we, as parents, make many decisions (either consciously or unconsciously) based on how we were raised" (wait... I wrote a whole post about this; hang on while I link to it and shamelessly promote myself... http://talesfromthedadside.blogspot.com/2006/09/tts-battling-ghosts.html).
We all have our own shit to deal with. The trick for parents is to make sure that our kids only deal with their shit, not our shit too.
I hate call waiting. So I don't have it.
Love this post!
My high school had a phone you could just go ahead and use. It was in the hallway outside an office that had the strictest teacher in the school inside but there was always a lineup of us calling home to ask for one thing or another. If it'd been like the public school I went to before it where there were payphones and that was it I'd bet that 90% of calls home wouldn't have been made.
Get the school to put in a pay phone for non-emergency calls home! They'll make a few bucks off the quarters and you parents will get a few dozen less calls a week.
Time to take a stand, mom! As a teacher/coach to both middle school and high school aged kids, I BEG you to let those kids take some personal responsibility. The older kids I teach have been horribly enabled, and if anything goes even slightly wrong in their little world, it's never their fault. If they don't have their homework it's because their mom forgot to remind them to take it. If they failed to wear their uniform to practice it's because their mom didn't wash it for them. It drives me bat shit crazy! The shitty part is only the parents can stop this... once they get to me they're already all messed up.
God, you are so much nicer than I am.
We all want to provide more for our kids than we had not matter how good or bad we had it. The thing is that shit is RIDICULOUS! I can't believe they don't have to get permission to use the phone first. I would limit them to 2 calls a month and should they exceed that something will be taken away...you know like their lunch. Just sayin'.
Reading this post, I was so sympathetic. Reading all the comments, I've come back to my senses and feel you are being had.
My kids aren't old enough to use a phone yet, but I tend to be a spoonfeeder and I have a complex about it. That is, I despise myself for being that way, but also feel compulsively driven to it out of some yucky, decidedly unclean mixture of guilt, fear, superstition, pity, love, envy, desire .... you name it -- my kids can bring up the feelings.
I'm sure you're aware of the resentful (albeit hilarious) tone you've brought to this post. I imagine this is not lost on your kids. They know you're a sucker and they may well know you're unhappy about it. Not a good combo, my instincts tell me. Let your actions and feelings be connected. Firm, clear, loving, and confident. They will have unbounded respect for that, whatever the position you take, lenient or not.
Thanks for this lively, funny post. And good luck! I'll be there soon.
**cough** Ahem. I see that my phone calls to your home number don't even get a mention. And I talk dirty to you with my sexy man voice!
And back in my day, we had to use a payphone if we forgot anything, and my parents would always refuse collect calls!
I teach 8th grade. Or at least, I teach when I'm not waiting for kids to get off the goddamn phone. EVERY day someone asks to use the phone. Why? "I need to tell my mom I want to go to Tyler's house." Um, what?!?!? Miss Maxipad I'd rescue, but everything else can WAIT.
Wow, you're making me glad for my daughter's school. No phone for the kids to use. They can barely use the phone when they quasi-need it (no lunch, etc.), and sometimes not even then. When are they doing this? I thought school was a wee bit too scheduled (and filled with that stuff called "schoolwork") to have time to call your mom about playing at someone else's house.
Oy!
So you're telling me that after being there for them 24/7 for 5 damn years I'm still not going to get a break once they get in school.
And I had hope. dammittohell.
You pushover, you! :)
At my son's old school, there was a kid that had a cell phone. In 1st grade. But then there was also the girl that had to call her mother every.single.day from the classroom phone. Because she missed her. And the teacher allowed it. Ack.
My son used to try the ol' "I'm not feeling good" trick on me but I made him go to school anyway. I'd tell him that if he started throwing up or running a fever, they'd call me and THEN I'd come get him. Until then, off to school!
I think our generation as parents is a little soft. There's nothing wrong with wanting better than you had for your kids, but I think we're too easy on them in alot of ways. And it makes me fear for the world when it's run by this generation we're raising.
But I hear ya! It's hard to refuse those sweet little faces sometimes!
The day I ignored my cell phone for a few minutes while I was driving? It was the school calling to tell me that my daughter had broken her arm. Oy, the guilt!
Seriously, though, I'm a huge proponent of sucking it up. I sometimes feel guilty when I'm making them do stuff that I have the time and energy for (because I'm a SAHM), and then I remind myself that if I never make them do it, it will be my job forever.
Better to feel failure and hunger and know the consequences now while they have a safety net than in 20 years when they're on their own.
I've been letting my daughter's grandpa enable her at school, but it's stopping at the end of this school year. I don't know who lets her get on the phone every damn day, but it will not be happening next year, because the year after will be high school. And I'm just tired enough of it.
So funny, I had a conversation on this exact subject yesterday during my daughter's ballet class with a few of the other mommies. At what point do you draw the line of swooping in to the rescue versus "you forgot it, why should I bring it?"
I had these high and mighty ideals when I had my daughter, being the office manager who repeatedly watched a mom leave WORK to go HOME to bring her son's HOMEWORK to him at SECOND GRADE (which wouldn't have been done in the first place except for the parents riding herd on him for 2 hours the night before). It was a 90 minute round trip, and she still did it at least twice a month. I'm unsurprised years later that he's in high school and has no study habits. But then, that's my smug outsider opinion which I'm sure will come back to bite me in the ass in a couple of years. ;)
i cannot tell a lie. i totally drove home from work to bring the roo-girl part of her project just last week.
she's going to be 15 soon.
perhaps we should grow up.
sigh.
You've got a bigger heart than we do. Our kids used to pull that too until we became Mean Uncaring Parents and saw to it that they were inconvenienced twice as bad as we were if we had to drop everything and go to school and rescue them, unless there were copious amounts of blood or puke involved. Of course, our kids had to tell everybody who'd listen what Mean, Uncaring Parents we were to not come running for them at the drop of a hat.
Back in my day, the principal's secretary was my aunt (dad's sister), which meant while I had easy access to a phone (or rather, asking Aunt Ginny to call home), there would be NO WAY IN HELL I'd ever do it, short of a limb hanging from a vein.
The other downside to the arrangement meant that if I ever got into trouble (who? moi'?), Dad would know before Mom would....
maybe that explains a lot about my life...
Well I guess it is nice to know that my kiddos arent the only ones doing this, well, really its just my daughter. In the 3 years that she has been in school, she has spent the majority of them in the nurses office. She was there so many times last year that they started keeping a little journal of her times she asked to go and then the times she actually got to go, etc. We have explained to her many times the whole crying wolf syndrome and I have to admit this year I have totally become the village. The nurse will call, I will listen to what ails my daughter and I will then tell the nurse to send her back to class. I am sure this nurse thinks I am the worlds meanest mom but I am so over it. And it never fails I will come home from work to see a daughter outside playing, all smiles, no health issues.
My parents were HUGE advocates of letting us realize the consequences of our mistakes. Since kindergarten we knew that we had to leave the house at 7:30 every morning so my dad could drive us to school (a half hour away) and still make it to work on time. He didn't wake us up. We had alarm clocks for that. ONCE when I was in 6th grade and my little brother was in 4th we slept in and woke up to watch my dad driving out of the driveway with my two older sisters at 7:30. My mom had plans that day and said it was our fault and we needed to find our own way to school. We had to call a taxi and pay for it ourselves out of the money we had saved all year.
I'm 23 now and because of that I am never late to ANYTHING.
Bleedin' Barfin' or Burnin' up. If my kids can't say they are doing one of these they know better then to call. I give them twice a year to forget something & call and ask to have it delivered. Other than that they are on their own.... my daughter is 13 & usually doesn't even use her two "passes" in the year.
My daughter started this last year. I work third shift, however, and interrupting sleep time for something trivial really ticks me off. (Don't get me wrong, I do jump in the car as soon as an important issue is presented.) So, one day when Little Miss Forgetful forgot her clarinet (again), I said, "Too bad, do without it." I haven't gotten a call since.
Our school has a good cafeteria account system in that I can preload it with money and if the kids miss a lunch they can still order one at the cafeteria. It has come in handy for the Little Miss many a time.
A thousand words to this, seriously. I feel (and act) exactly the same way with my kid and his motor skills. He CAN snap his own pants, he WON'T snap his own pants, and I am torn between saying, "Dude, you're way too big for me to still have to help you in the bathroom, this shit would not have flown when I was your age, plz to be growin up nao, kthxbye," and just... uh, continuing to do this and other assorted chores for him.
Of course, you KNOW which of those options I actually DO. And then I gripe about how kids today are babied so much, and what's he going to do when he goes to real school, and how will he ever cope in the real world if he can't even SNAP his own PANTS, I mean my GOD, have you ever seen such a helpless and lazy child?!
And then he calls "Mommy!" from somewhere and I go darting off to save the day, when it would probably be better for both of us if I left him to learn to save himself. Please, Lord, don't let his school have a student phone.
Do.NOT.get them their own cell phones.
They will call you on bathroom breaks to tell you they're sick and need to come home.
You.have.been.warned.
In my own youth I took the bus and my mom worked. My dad worked at home, but had to be there during business hours, so he wasn't generally available either. I forgot my lunch once in high school and my friends chipped in for a hot dog. When I forgot homework it had to stay forgotten. And when I forgot my gym strip I sat out. I think it's reasonable to let your kids live with the non-life-threatening consequences of their actions, within reason.
However, I haven't actually been faced with this situation myself. Dollars to donuts I would totally cave.
Sink or swim.
Of course at times I'm told that I'm mean, or harsh - but I only want them to be self-sufficient so that they can be confident little girls.
I'm still stuck on the part where they have a phone dedicated to student use.
I get those calls and I do not bring homework or stuff to school. Only a lunch, one time, but they usually remember it. My big problem is my daughter's teacher-she lets her call me when her loose tooth gets a little bit of blood on her sandwich, gives her lunch money if she forgot her lunch and also when she doesn't feel well. Then I actually bring her home, thinking, wow, she must be sick because the teacher called, and then when we are home like 30 minutes later, she is all playing and running through the house. Nope. Now, if they are not physically barfing, crapping or bleeding profusely, they can stay. And I am a stay-at-home-mom. Whatever. I had to REALLY be sick before my mom came to pick me up from school. So, totally can relate. We just gotta bring out the mean mommy and get the school on board as well.