I’ve talked before on my blog about my family — my two beautiful boys.
My role as a mother is the most important role I have. It always comes first — day or night, sleep or no sleep. I know that many of you can relate.
But I’m also a teacher. That role is important, too {oh-so important}. It seems to be such a close second to my role as a mother that sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between the two — but it’s there.
This is the year where they both meet. They meet in the middle of that Venn diagram.
Last year, when William turned 4, I remember thinking to myself — “this is it. The countdown to Kindergarten.” Since then, the apprehension and anxiety has slowly built.
How do I let him go? How do I learn to balance Mom and teacher in this new way? How do I live in that tiny space in the middle of that Venn diagram?
In some ways, I already live in that space.
William has some challenges. We are still working to discover what to call those challenges {a diagnosis}, but they’re there. Difficulty relating to others, frequent physical outbursts, difficulty communicating emotions or needs, difficulty transitioning, difficulty focusing on tasks outside of narrow interest areas, difficulty with sensory experiences — including writing and drawing.
Those challenges are where I live in that space now — half feeling the sting of those difficulties as a mother, half trying to lessen them as a teacher.
But soon I’ll share that job with someone else.
And that… that’s going to be hard.
If you’re a parent and you’ve already sent your firstborn off to school, you understand that challenge. If you’re a parent and you’re about to send your firstborn to school or will in the coming years, you may be feeling some anxiety about it, like me.
As a Mom, I don’t have all of the answers. I don’t have a magic piece of advice to help you ease the transition into the space where you share your child so greatly with another human being and relinquish some of that control.
But as a teacher, as a teacher who has been the other half of that equation for 20+ mothers {and fathers, and grandmothers and grandfathers} each year… I can give myself, the mother — now Teacher Mom — a piece of advice.
Trust.
Trust that he/she will love and care for your child when you are not there. Trust that he/she will want the best for them; that they will hurt when he/she hurts, that they will laugh when he/she laughs, that they will feel a deep desire to see your child succeed no matter what.
Trust that whatever difficulties or exceptionalities your child may have he/she will work tirelessly for them. Even, and especially when they are separating themselves from others, or having an outburst; even, and especially when they don’t have words for how they’re feeling; even, and especially when they’re still two tasks behind; even, and especially when they haven’t started.
Trust that they will be there for your child.
It is a leap of faith.
But it’s one worth taking. For you, for your child, for the man or woman that will teach them.
This is the space I am choosing to live in as Rich, William, and I embark on this new experience together. I trust. I trust you, the teacher that will teach him this year. I trust you, the teacher that will teach him next year. And the year after. And the year after.
I trust you.
{I would love for you to share your experiences — as teachers, as mothers and fathers, or both — with trust.}
