I am writing about parent stuff all week. I have kids on the brain and feel like talking about them. For those who show up for politics, check out this interesting discussion about religion and the Democratic Party with PZ Myers and Amy Sullivan.

When my kid started Kindergarten last year, I mistakenly thought “Whoo. One down. One to go.” I thought that elementary school was sort of like college with lunchboxes. My work was mostly over, and I could return to being my usual self-involved, work-obsessed self. Not so.

Well, first of all, the school doesn’t really let you off the hook. I often get phone calls from the school nurse, because my kid has done something stupid like kicking his shoe onto the roof of the school. There’s the homework and paperwork and fundraisers and pizza day clogging up my brain and taking up time.

And then I’ve also been slowly realizing that there is a lot of behind the scene action by the other parents to insure their kid’s popularity.

The kids who are considered cool, also have the super involved PTA moms who all know each other and arrange for playdates at each other’s homes. The kids pick up on their mom’s feelings of being in the in-club. Those kids never have mom who forget to send in money for pizza day. The A-list moms make sure that their kids are A-list also.

For the boys at least, popularity is also determined by sports ability. Sports ability is greatly enhanced by taking lots of lessons — Karate, soccer, baseball. There are traveling teams and special leagues. All of which require lots of schlepping, lots of money, and lots of energy. These activities help them gain points during recess and reinforces relationships with the other sporty boys.

Raising kids is sort of like waging war. You are always fighting the last war. I got picked on in elementary school, because I read too much and because my academic parents raised me differently from the working class parents in the town. I am very fearful that the same fate awaits my kids. I don’t want them to be the most popular. I just don’t want them to get picked on. They need to blend a little.

Reluctantly, I have stepped in to raise my kid’s popularity stock. In the past week, I have had several kids from school over the house. (Next post is about what happens at these playdates.) I signed him up for Karate classes at the same gym where the cool kids go. I signed him for swimming lessons.

We debated whether or not we should get an X-Box for Jonah just so that he isn’t left out from those conversations at school.

I’m not all that pleased about this. I don’t like this puppet master parenting thing. I don’t like dragging the kids around New Jersey. I don’t like playing nicely with some of the other parents. I don’t like being pressured to look like everyone else just because that is so important to kids. But I also don’t like seeing my six year old come home in tears because another kid called him a loser.

How far do we go to save him from those tears?