I used to have a J-O-B. Five days a week, I got up at 5:30, took about an hour to get ready, got my son up and dressed, dropped him at daycare around 6:45 or 7, and then headed to work. I set up my classroom for the day's lessons, checked emails, checked in with teammates about the schedule for the day, checked my box in the front office, and then began my day as a teacher around 7:30. My fifty minute 'planning' or 'conference' period was usually consumed by scheduled or impromptu meetings to discuss student progress or concerns, or by training on the latest technology developments and best practices, or by reviewing data from student assessments. Very rarely was it spent planning or conferencing. My lunch was a brief 20 minutes between dropping kids off and picking them up from the cafeteria. The other 6.5 hours I spent developing relationships with kids, inspiring them to crave knowledge and take risks, observing them and making note of their progress, areas of weakness, and areas where they needed to be challenged. After ensuring all students were safely dismissed, I spent at least 1-2 hours each day reviewing student data and tweaking lesson plans, grading papers, conferencing with other teachers, returning parent phone calls and emails, doing research for tools to make my lessons more engaging...and on and on.
When I left at 4:30 or 5 most days, I picked up my child from daycare, where he had spent a solid ten hours in someone else's care. I then went home to resume my other job as mother until his bedtime at 8 p.m. Most days I tried to be patient enough and present enough, and most days I failed.
At 8 p.m. most nights, I resumed my role as homemaker and wife, making dinner so that my husband and I could sit down for a few uninterrupted moments together. After cleaning up dinner, I started, switched out, or folded laundry while watching a little TV before a never-early-enough bedtime. Oftentimes I also sat with my laptop, grading papers, entering grades, responding to parent emails, or creating lessons.
On my days off, I caught up on all the things I couldn't possibly keep track of during the week.
In the fall of 2015, when my first child was two and I was seven months pregnant with the second, I began to question how I could continue with this overwhelming existence once a second child entered the mix. I stayed awake at night doing lots and lots of math in my head. I figured up the cost of childcare for two children, which would be about a third of my salary. I realized that I could no longer justify working fifty-hour work weeks, spending ten hours away from my kids every weekday, just so I could pay someone else to be with them. I could no longer justify being incapable of being present for them during the off times.
In January 2016, I gave birth to my second child. During my twelve weeks of maternity leave I struggled with the decision I was contemplating. As exhausted as I was, and as much as I want to be a good mother and do right by my kids, I love teaching. I am truly, passionately, divinely called to teach. It is in my heart and my blood, and even on the hardest of days, I never questioned the purpose to which my life had been called.
But I had to make a choice between the J-O-B of teaching, and the J-O-B of being a momma, wife, and homemaker. In the end there really was no choice for me.
I quit. I quit trying to balance a ridiculously overwhelming set of expectations placed on my head as a teacher with the ridiculously overwhelming job of being a mom. And let's be honest. Most moms are the ones doing all the additional work outside of just being a parent and working full time. Laundry, cleaning, errands, meals, etc. etc. etc. And no offense to the husbands. I know you try and help. But it's just a natural truth that women are the caretakers and the control freaks, and most often these responsibilities fall to us. (Or we rip them out of the hands of whoever tries to load the dishwasher the wrong way.)
So I quit. I quit a J-O-B that I had loved and lived for fourteen years, because the teacher-mom dual existence was too much to ask of any one human being.
Kudos to those of you mommas who somehow hold your heads above water as you teach and inspire other people's kids, and then come home and find the strength to love and nurture your own. To those of you who balance a fifty-hour work week with game schedules, dance practices and recitals, family dinners for your people...and who somehow keep your people in clean underwear throughout the week. Kudos to you who could do what I could not. I hope the teaching profession finds a way someday to repay you for your many sacrifices.
Stay tuned for The J-O-B Part II: The Not-So-Stay-At-Home-Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment