I’ve been incredibly torn over the last year when I think about my kids. My mom, who is the smartest person I know, tells me that every single kid is an experiment of its own. No amount of experience makes a person more prepared to raise them.
I was cracking an egg into the skillet this morning for my little boy’s breakfast, and he told me the skillet was too hot.
“I don’t need advice from a six year old,” I informed him as the grease sizzled and popped and I cranked down the heat.
“Seven,” he corrected.
Blast.
I think we’re always looking for a foolproof way to raise them, but the problem is we parents are a bunch of fools. For some reason, God intended it to be this way. It befuddles me. I resent being a fool.
We were all sent home from school in March with the hope we’d have a nice ten-day Spring break. When we didn’t return and things got wacky and weird, I decided the worst thing possible would be for my kids to do online work with a school-appointed device. That ball and chain called an iPad grated on me, and we had more problems than a penguin in Florida. Every time there was a glitch, every time we couldn’t access the teacher’s video class, each online research assignment waylaid by furtive visits to poki-dot-com, all the endless zoom meetings where I hissed at kids to be quiet and stop flopping about on the floor…The combination I most despised (scheduled, mandatory screen time+hyperenergetic boys) was my nightmare coming to life. I resented every bit of it.
Homeschool mocked me–see, Pearl? I told you the grass was greener over here. You could be hiking and discussing Thoreau. You could be teaching them gouache and practicing Bach’s cello suites. Remember how much the boys love science experiments?
The weather just so happened to be gorgeous during the first eight months of the pandemic. Since school in person wasn’t going to happen, I might as well…homeschool?
Fools will be fools. I didn’t feel like I had any other options. But there were many highlights, and we ended up traveling more last year than I have in the last decade. We camped in the desert, we kayaked Lake Powell. We played with friends in the mountains and made a handful of cross-country road trips. We flew to the beach and brushed up our Spanish. In the cracks of our adventures we did Greg Tang math worksheets and picked up new instruments. We discovered Mark Rober on youtube. We read a thousand books. We wrote silly stories. We perfected our dog treat recipe.
All maskless. All fearless.
I would recommend this lifestyle change, except it has come at a great cost. Many of my friends were able to return to in-school learning before Christmas. I couldn’t believe their luck. In fact, just tonight I got an email from our district informing us parents that kids under 11 will be welcomed back to school as if all is normal, but ages 12 and up are required to prove they are vaccinated or must wear a mask. This seems like a recipe for a brutal seventh grade year. Let’s talk about peer pressure, hm?
Yes, our inclusive school thinks it is doing humanity a favor by weeding out the idiots, or at least humiliating them in the public square.
But this isn’t every school–it’s just where the piranhas feed. The woke (how I’m beginning to hate the word) who have awakened to give hell to everyone who disagrees with them–they tell us how our money ought to be spent. It usually funnels to less and less academia and more and more pockets, followed by self-actualization.
I don’t miss my second grader coming home from music class and asking me if I could explain the Taylor Swift song, You Need to Calm Down because his teacher called it her “anthem” and blasted it on repeat.
I don’t miss my fourth grader’s assigned reading, CNN, or writing a persuasive essay on climate change and green energy–no choice in the matter. I don’t miss the election year class banter that usually turned into a teacher’s right-of-way to propagate new voters. I don’t miss emailing the teacher and explaining why I disagree with a bring-your-device-to-school party (I’d gladly donate pizza, if we need to celebrate).
Obviously, I don’t miss screen-time busywork.
But I could see past all of it to a point, because it made it necessary for me to put my big girl pants on and speak up. It forced me to be an example for my kids; it smacked reality right in my face and made me answer the questions, how are you going to handle this? How are your kids going to watch you react?
And that is exactly what I’m after. I want real life engagement with my people. I want them to look around, then look at me for confirmation or disapproval. They are training for what will someday be an all-out moral war.
It’s unfortunate, but it’s also beneficial, as are the numerous beautiful encounters we have on a daily basis in public school. I mention them here on the blog often, but there is nothing, nothing! Like having an awesome teacher in your life. It’s a kind affirmation over your shoulder, it’s a red pen note at the bottom– “needs work, but getting there”. It’s relief to the parent who actually didn’t pay attention to trigonometry or physics the first time around. Or like me, the parent with terrible penmanship who cannot figure out how to teach penmanship to a first grader. It’s hope that there is room for improvement, and it is accountability to get there.
It’s a sealed envelope from the school nurse, the first to find your child is nearsighted. It’s notes from the kitchen manager, your kid is blowing all his cash on hot Takis for his friends. It’s the administration, giggling with excitement because you’ve brought in fresh donuts. It’s showing up for parent-teacher conferences and surprising staff with salads from Panera because they haven’t eaten in six hours.
This is what we’ve been missing while we picked flowers and painted pictures. We’ve been missing having real life relationships with people.
We are moving out of our school district. Once again, I feel like I’ve failed; this fool parent can’t get a hang of things. But everything truly is an experiment, and I am grateful each time for a new beginning.
I’m so glad we can always start over, and that we can switch gears when one situation is no longer working.
I’m so glad kids are resilient, and I pray they look back and see I was trying to do what I thought best, even if it wasn’t always on target.
I flicked my wrist and flipped the fried egg; no spatula. “Whoa, did you see that?!” I exclaimed to my boy. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that! Did you see me? Wasn’t it awesome?”
“Kinda,” he said. “On a scale from 1 to ten, I’d give it a three. I mean, it’s not exactly a magic trick.”
I shoot him a cool look. He shrugs.
“You should be grateful I gave it a number higher than one.”
I’m still just his mom, and that’s fine by me.
Dang it, they’re going to really miss me next fall.
