What Holiday Gift Cards for Your Child’s Teacher Say About You

Besides "thanks for keeping my kid alive."

New writer alert! Caroline Horwitz lives in Pittsburgh and has written humor for McSweeney’s, Weekly Humorist, Points in Case, Functionally Dead, The Belladonna, Slackjaw, and more.

Photo by Rob Laughter on Unsplash

The holidays are here, which means it’s time to buy a gift card for your child’s teacher while idling in the school pickup line. Your choice says a lot about you as a parent—and it probably isn’t good.

Amazon
You think everyone’s been overly critical of the world’s billionaires lately. Also, imaginative play in children is highly overrated.

Barnes & Noble
You want the teacher to think of you as cerebral and literary despite your kid’s abysmal ELA scores.

DoorDash
Your last attempt at cooking dinner resulted in a family subscription to BetterHelp.

Starbucks
You opt for the safety of gift cards because you refuse to overthink this and hate risk-taking. Everyone likes coffee, right? You know that *you* at least like coffee… don’t you? Or have you just been culturally and chemically conditioned to make you think you like it? Do you even know who you are? Do you know anything anymore?

Dunkin’
You know you don’t really like coffee, but you feel that drinking it cancels out the Boston Kreme donut beckoning you there.

Disney
Your SUV has those mouse-ear family stickers on its back window. You went to Disneyland and/or World four times last year. Only one of those was with your children.

Lowe’s/Home Depot
You spend fifteen hundred dollars and six months on all home repair problems before allowing a professional serviceperson to cross your home’s threshold. Your spouse is seriously considering divorce.

REI
You bought a family-size tent eight years ago and are definitely planning to use it for a camping trip soon. Life just keeps getting in the way, but after next summer’s beach trip, you swear, it’s backcountry time.

AMC/Fandango
You’re kept up nights by the uncertain state of the movie theater industry. You’re awaiting another Barbenheimer phenomenon so that you can feel something again.

Netflix
You didn’t know movie theaters still existed and haven’t watched a movie that wasn’t streaming since Obama was in office.

Sephora
You spend so much time here with your daughter that you didn’t get a chance to shop anywhere else.

Etsy
You refuse to set foot in chain stores because they’re killing small businesses, like your mail-order steampunk taxidermy shop.

Build-a-Bear
You haven’t purchased a gift for anyone over the age of seven in as many years.

PetSmart/Chewy
You carry a pet hair remover at all times and sign off all your holiday cards with, “A donation has been made in your name to your local humane society.”

V-Bucks
This was literally the only thing on your preteen son’s wish list, but it “accidentally” ended up in the wrong envelope. You’re secretly hoping that if he sees his teacher online in Fortnite, he won’t want to play it anymore.

Nike
You told yourself you weren’t disappointed when the teacher didn’t compliment how fit you looked at Open House.

Target
You’ve inadvertently switched water bottles with your kid at one of their soccer games, and they ended up blocking and passing with rosé on their jersey.

Dave & Buster’s
You like to start arguments with other parents in the parking lot after each sporting or school event. You’ve never been in a real fight, but you regularly practice the arm-reloading thing that Henry Cavill did in Mission: Impossible – Fallout in the mirror. You are married to the Target gift card buyer.

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