Maybe I'm a nightmare for the teachers.

What fresh hell.

Laughing in the face of motherhood.

The memory still wounds.

With Margaret Abels and Amy Wilson.

Yeah, we're just the late family.

A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas so you don't have to.

A big bucket of ready confetti

hello everyone and welcome to what fresh hell laughing in the face of motherhood this is

margaret and this is Amy. And today we're talking

about what fresh hell is back to school. It is one of the many fresh hells, Amy, one of the many

fresh hells. We're Northeasterners. So our kids go back to school after Labor Day. Like now. Yeah.

Yeah. My family's Southern folk are, they've all been back in school for three weeks now. It's wild. You see those back to school? They're like, what fresh house fall break? What do you mean? Yeah, like you see those back to school photos and you're like, well, we're just back in for the vacation. Like, what's happening over there? Mm-hmm. But yeah, we're all doing it at a certain point. We're going back to school. Even the at-home schoolers have to get back to a routine. I mean, it's happening people. That's right. Okay, we're going to talk about all the really bad things about the back-to-school season, the fresh house. But first, let's do our mailbag. Oh, please. Oh, yes. Wait a minute. Time for mail bag. Wait, way, yeah, yeah, check the mailbag.

So this one comes from Molly. Wait a minute, time for mailbag. Wait, wait, yeah, yeah, check the mailbag.

So this one comes from Molly in our Facebook group.

This was kind of a whole category of mailbags we got, which was after our episode, Why Isn't This a Thing?

Which was so successful we're going to do, Why Isn't This a Thing thing part two coming soon to a headset near you.

Anyway, a phone in your general vicinity. Molly from our Facebook group said I was listening to the Why Isn't This a Thing episode while packing up some of my kids outgrown clothes and books.

And I wanted to tell everyone that there are local to you groups on Facebook that you can use to exchange gently used kid stuff. She says that one of my neighborhood is called Pay It Forward. Sometimes they're called Buy Nothing groups. I am so happy to be able to give a bag of 4T boys' clothes directly to someone whose kid can use them instead of dumping them in a bin somewhere. Yes. So thanks, Molly. And I'll put a link in the show notes.

The New York Times, actually, same week, did a whole thing about, like, here's how to give away clothes instead of just sort of throwing them in the landfill directly. Here are some better ideas. And it was all about the buy nothing groups. So I'll put that link in the show notes. Yeah, I'm a big buy nothinger. I have a piano from Buy Nothing.

Right at this moment, as we speak, Amy, out my window is an Iron Man helmet.

Just wait. Yeah, I'm a big buy nothinger. I have a piano from Buy Nothing. Right at this moment, as we speak, Amy, out my window is an Iron Man helmet just waiting to be picked up. And the lady's going to leave me an aloe plant in exchange, just to be nice. Yeah, she was like, oh, my grandson's going to be so excited for the Iron Man helmet. Would you like an aloe? I said, sure. I'm Irish. I sunburned easily. Yes.

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