Listen, I know your volunteers are young. I know most of them are college students because I used to volunteer when I was a college student and I remember looking around the table and seeing a lot of other passionate young folks with occasional retirees. What I didn’t see much at those volunteer trainings were people my age — middle-aged-ish. You know, people with jobs and kids.

And so I understand that your phone bank workers don’t get me and that when they call me to volunteer they are unlikely to appreciate the reality of my life even when I tell it to them. So they may not believe me when I say, “I am extremely busy because I have two homeschooled children and freelance work and volunteer work for another outfit BUT if you have any one-off jobs I can do with my kids, I can do them. Because I’d be happy to give my kids a chance to be involved and I would like to help.”

So this means no data entry. Like I said, I want to do something WITH my kids and I’m pretty sure that the young man on the phone has never tried to do data entry with kids running around like small lunatics or he wouldn’t suggest it. And if data entry is at your office, then it’s even less likely. (I did a night of data entry for the Obama campaign and that was at their offices.)

See, having kids makes things harder. It doesn’t mean we don’t care (so please, could you put away your heavy sighs and guilt-attempting annoyance?), it means we are freaking busy. You want parents — especially working parents — to help you get out the vote? Find a way to involve us with our kids. Let me tell you, a lot of families would love to have their kids lend a hand. Why not have a family night envelope stuffing party? I remember doing this for some Oregon Women’s Fund organization way back when in Portland — they got us pizzas and we stuffed the hell out of their capital campaign envelopes. Kids over a certain age could totally do that and many of them are more than happy to work for pizza. This is your chance to grow your future activists! Teach them about the political process and give their parents a chance to be involved! Because I can do data entry if you can find something for my kids to do while I do it.

Unfortunately, even though I had time to come up with this great pizza party idea and the time to type it here, I don’t have time to organize it. But you, dearest college student likely without a job with the adorable apologetic and awkward phone manner who called me last night, you do. I know this because I had time when I was a college student even when I was working full-time. Because you know what is a bigger time suck than exam week? Every dang week with kids. I am not even kidding. You can’t believe it now but I am telling you that it is true. So don’t question me about if I’m sure I can’t do this or that, don’t offer me jobs I can’t do with my kids when I told you that my kids are part of my volunteer deal — come up with something! Talk to your supervisor! Say, “There is this untapped source of energy and it is called PARENTS WITH CHILDREN!”

Otherwise, sure, keep me on your list. Call me closer to the election. Like I said, I’ll hang door signs because I can bring my kids but you can keep that data entry to your own self.

(We told the library this, too, when Abby was mounting her nonfiction re-shelving advocacy effort and they said re-shelving would be hard on their staff and we said we had library-loving kids who would help. I tell nonprofits all the time that they should look to the homeschooling community because most of us are passionate about whatever advocacy is floating our boat — being people who act on our strong feelings as evidenced by our pulling our kids out of school or never even sending them even though Good Morning America and our far-flung relatives and random people at the grocery store think we’re nuts — and we have free labor in the guise of kids who are willing to work for the pure love of learning something.)