Locker Chandeliers? Fancy Lunchbox Notes? Seriously Folks, Can't We Dial It Back a Tad?

I'm not one who's fond of picking fights with people. Usually I'm a live and let live kind of gal. But where I do get my knickers in a twist is when someone else's actions start putting pressure on me to adhere to their over-the-top standards. Then I get testy.

What sort of standards? The kind I read about in a series of three articles last week:

First, I read an article about parents who go to their children's middle schools and decorate the youngsters' lockers with rugs, wallpaper and even locker chandeliers. Yes, LOCKER CHANDELIERS. (The article described how the lockers are now seen by those in the middle school set as a reflection of the students' personalities and has an impact on how that child is perceived by her peers.)

Second, I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about how parents (re: moms) can craft A+ lunches for their kids by tucking elaborate, inspiring, Dale Carnegie-esque notes inside their children's lunchboxes every day, perhaps mixing things up a bit by gift wrapping their offspring's sandwiches or occasionally decorating their kids' pieces of fruit so that the fruit has a face. (The piece said the note writing has become competitive in some circles with disappointed children chastising their mothers if another student receives a hipper lunchbox note than they did.)

Finally, there was the story about a woman who was 39 weeks pregnant yet ran a marathon, delivered her baby only a few hours later and then proclaimed she wasn't tired. After reading this, I readied my white flag of surrender. Reading about these women simply exhausted me.

However I decided against waving the flag of surrender and instead opted to launch a counteroffensive, declaring these parental actions simply batty. Therefore my Pop Culture column this week over on Modern Mom calls for the moms who are raising the parenthood bar to extremely absurd heights to consider the plaintive cries of we mere mortals who have neither the time nor the inclination to install a chandelier in our children's lockers to please, for the love of God, dial it back a bit. In the words of fellow blogger Jen Singer, of MommaSaid, "You're ruining this for the rest of us . . . Knock it off."

Image credit: Locker Lookz.