Labour Day in the age of parenting

Dear school,

I am consigning my child to your curriculum
Hoping that you will have him labour, but not too much.
Help him arrive in at least the middle of the middle class,
Although upper middle class would be nice
As long as he is not too much of a hipster and
Doesn’t take the New York Times Style section too seriously.

Could you please let me know what the standards are this year?
NPR informs me there’s an Overparenting Crisis.
Could you define over parenting? Will there be a test on that later?
Do I need to supply the snacks?
And if so, do boxed mix cupcakes count as nut-free?
Should I worry whether the food colouring was made by child labourers in Bangladesh?
(Do you think my child’s job will be outsourced to Bangladesh in 2045?)
(Do you think he should be learning Bengali?)

As for learning, here are our summer benchmarks:
Handwriting: Not Instagram-worthy yet
Times tables: Able to multiply 4 NDP signs by 5 lawns.
Vocabulary:  “Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light.” (Netflix had Avatar: The Last Airbender this summer!)

You will find my son two shoe sizes larger,
Four eye-rolls closer to puberty,
And three camp friends richer.

I hope he won’t disrupt the class,
Although if you could help him create a disruptive app that would be awesome.