I’ve been nagging my middle schooler to clean out his backpack for months. Every morning when I can’t fit his lunch box in the bottomless abyss that is his backpack, I remember he still hasn’t cleaned it out.
“But Mom, I need all of those things!” is always the response I get. I don’t care if he needs them, but if all of those things are essential to his life in sixth grade, I at least need them to be organized.
Over spring break, however, the big kid went to camp one day, and I took this as our opportunity to quit procrastinating and finally clean out the backpack. I pulled everything out and put it on the dining room floor so he could go through it and only put back the necessities.
I found it so interesting the things he told me were so essential that he needed to keep them in crumpled balls in his bag to carry around with him, switching classes all day long. Here’s what I found.
- Band/Jazz Band binder (ok, he can keep that)
- A winter hat (It’s April and basically still winter, so I’m glad he has it)
- Not one, but two pairs of identical winter gloves
- Two copies of the high school newspaper
- Chromebook (in its case, yay!)
- Chromebook charging cord (which should be in the case, but you can’t win them all)
- 5th grade music folder (He’s in 6th grade) that says, “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” I like the message on it, so I can see why he wanted to keep it, but still. He doesn’t need last year’s music.
- A piece of crumpled tinfoil, which I think he used for part of a science project about cells. I’ll follow up with him on why he needed to keep garbage in there.
- Multiple old math papers from a unit that has been over for months.
- Reading passages, again from the beginning of the year, again crumpled or folded haphazardly.
- Multiple trinkets and keychains
- Multiple pencils (Because “You never know when you’re gonna need a pencil, Mom”)
- Two copies of the postcard for the district-wide art show (during which he plays in jazz band).
- Multiple folded, loose school papers that I didn’t feel like fully reading.
- One “Home” folder, most likely filled with papers that he no longer needs, but I didn’t go through it.
- Multiple sticky notes with reminders to study for specific tests.
There is an overarching theme in my oldest child’s school bag, and I’ve come to some conclusions.
- My child likes to have multiples of things. Being over-prepared is one of his best (and worst) qualities.
- He lives in two houses, which may account for the double gloves, newspapers, and postcards. Sometimes, he takes the same things from each house, and the backpack is the only thing he brings to school and both houses.
- He is conscientious and doesn’t ever want to be without his concert band or jazz band music, so it remains in his backpack.
- He’s responsible, hence the study reminders.
- He’s quirky.
- His backpack seems disorganized, but he knows what’s in there and where everything is.
Do we still have to discuss cleaning out his backpack every once in a while? Yes.
Did I expect anything inappropriate to be in there? No.
Is everything I took out still in the backpack? Yes.
