Opinion: Why my inbox may not survive kindergarten

By BRIAN ADAMS

Published: 10-10-2023 4:00 PM

Brian Adams of Andover, Mass., is a UNH alumnus originally from Londonderry. He was previously a sketch comedy writing instructor and staff writer at ImprovBoston and a founding contributor to satirical online newspaper Recyculus. He is a father to three girls ages 6 and under.

I’m old enough to remember a time when email was exciting and magical. Behold! A new frontier of communications, delivered to us by snail mail (or just “mail” as it was then known) from America Online. Oh, it was a glorious time and anything was possible. Can I make up my own email address? Yes, you can! Does it cost money? Not as far as we can tell! Could I just email anyone, anytime I want? Unclear! Just the sheer number of unknowns was enough to keep the youth of a generation dazzled by the possibilities that email and the internet might hold for us.

Slowly but surely, like a dial-up modem connecting to the World Wide Web with the nails-on-a-chalkboard screech we grew to love, that magical time gave way to inboxes overflowing with tempting offers from the Prince of Nigeria, fake gift certificates to Applebee’s, and all sorts of warnings about what could happen to our precious computers in Y2K. Today you have business requests from your boss, notifications from Instagram, and amazing deals from every business with which you’ve ever interacted in any way, the emails just...will not...stop.

With my daughter’s enrollment into Kindergarten this fall, a new category has been added to my inbox: school email. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter is going to a wonderful school with a very thoughtful and highly competent administration and we’re all very excited about it. But, the emails.

They started innocently enough. Subject lines like “Thanks for Enrolling!” and “Welcome to Our School” slowly but surely gave way to “Here’s Your Handy Dandy 99-Item Back to School Checklist” and “This is Your Life Now! It’s Your Fault for Having Children!”

I’m all about clear communication and technology, but maybe we could be more efficient about it? Like me, the schools seem to value efficiency, too. That’s why you have to sign up for the apps. Oh, the apps! Sometimes there are emails about the apps! Those of you without a child attending school in recent years might wonder, “Why would parents need to download an app on their phone for the sake of their child?” Why let me tell you, my sweet summer child: to sign up for school lunch, RSVP for the Playground Popsicle Social, or find out about volunteer opportunities where you can spend time composing emails to send out to all the other parents about the apps they need to download.

There has to be a less invasive way to get these messages across. Skywriting is probably cost-prohibitive and bulletin boards are too old-fashioned. Is there a method in existence that could work without giving me a full-blown anxiety attack every time I hopped on Gmail?

My daughter’s nursery school utilized “backpack mail,” whereby each 4-year-old was effectively deputized as an unwitting mail carrier. It was a well-meaning system with mixed results. I can still remember the time I brought my daughter to school on Valentine’s Day and all the children took off their winter coats to start the day. While most revealed red and white outfits with sparkles and hearts, my daughter and a few others revealed their typical gray and green school uniforms. I had clearly missed the memo. The backpack mail announcing a dress-down day had gotten past me. My daughter surveyed the rest of the girls in their dresses and looked at me with a furrowed brow, simply exclaiming “Daddy!” I knew what I had done. Look, I would like to take the blame for that, but even more than that, I would like to blame backpack mail.

I may just have to resign myself to the fact that my inbox will forever be as full as Joey Chestnut’s stomach after a 4th of July hot dog binge. In reality, I should actually try to appreciate this current volume of electronic correspondence while I still can. Did I mention that this daughter of mine has one-year-old twin sisters?

I mean, I feel pretty unprepared just having them living in my house on a daily basis, but I’m more prepared for the apocalypse than I am for emails dropping into my inbox at twice the rate that I’m receiving them. I wish there was some kind of technology where parents of multiple children in the same school could receive only one email about the next Taco Tuesday Fiesta or Dress Like Your Favorite Kardashian Day. Although, maybe there’s an app for that?