Disclaimer: Here’s to the moms, dads, and all of the brave men and women who are working in healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic. You are the real heroes. We are praying for you, depending on you, and in awe of your courage. We need you and we are grateful you are there. We will stay home to ensure that you can do your job properly. We will pray for you because we know that you cannot stay home. We recognize you as invaluable and honor your duty to our families and our nation. The same can and should continue to be said of service men and women, those in law enforcement, and the community helpers who must work outside the home for the sake of our communities during this time. To all of you, we thank you with deep gratitude.
Dear Fellow Teacher-Moms,
Our culture has long-given lip service to the idea of home life and work life balance. As working mothers, many of us have known the swaying pendulum between juggling this like a champ and feeling guilt when the balance tips too heavily to one side. Working moms have never felt that there was quite enough of ourselves to be and do everything we wanted to be and to do. This has always been a thing. This is not new.
As the child of a teacher, I remember being confused when my mom would talk about her “kids” and would mean her students as opposed to my brother and I. As a teacher-mom, my own boys discern the same differences in my language and storytelling, as well. It’s inevitable when we love and feel responsible, on different levels, for numerous children simultaneously. I can remember asking my mom why a certain bag of candy was for her students and not for my brother and I to share. Yes, my own boys know the difference between classroom treats and family treats, as well. I can remember asking my mom why she couldn’t come to my open-house, class parties, or field trips. My dad or my grandma could come from time to time, but my mom could not. My mom did an exceptional job of explaining that she had her own classroom open house, parties, and field trips. She was the teacher at someone else’s Meet the Teacher Night. Yes, my own boys experience this. I try to give my children and my husband a quick wave when I see them in the hallway of my building on the evening of a school event. This is the life we have chosen and I am so grateful for it. This is the opportunity cost of the job that I love with all of my heart for the children that I love with all of my heart. This is part and parcel for our occupation, teacher-moms.
While balancing our students and our own children is old-hat for any mom in education, this pandemic has created a brand new season in our lives. And all the teachers said, “Amen!”
Suddenly, we are literally balancing our every minute between communicating with our students online and feeding our children lunch. We are making brand new decisions every half hour such as:
“Do I read aloud to my Kindergarten child right now or should I record myself reading aloud to send a video to my students?”
“Should I sit and eat lunch with my boys or should I use this time while they are quiet to email my students’ parents their codes for Google Classroom?”
“Maybe I can assign my students independent reading books on Epic while asking my own boys to read their library books independently!”
“Do I respond to my child’s teacher about his Zoom meeting or do I answer my student’s parent about his log-in?”
We want to do all of these things. We will do all of these things. These are all good and meaningful and essential and valuable things on our daily itineraries. We will choose them all.
Yet, everything feels different than it did before. Our homes are not only our homes anymore. My kitchen is now my classroom and the classroom for my children. I quite like the way it looks and feels if I am being completely honest. The dinner table is now the place where we eat three times a day, but it also serves as the desk for all five of us in between each meal as we learn and work from home. Our kitchen table is now our desk, our workspace, the center of our mealtime, the center for our conversations, and the center of our family. The kitchen table is our home base.
Strangely enough, we now feel this same sacred space with Google classroom. (For you, it may be another virtual space, but you get the general idea.) We now have these virtual spaces that serve as home base for our students to meet us each day. It is where we will give lessons, answer questions, and reach hearts while teaching little minds.
In the history of our world, have elementary school teachers ever felt this plugged-in? Many educators are very tech-savvy. Sure! The rest of us? We’re swimming hard and fast to grow in our knowledge of all the techy things because teachers will teach despite the current circumstances.
A pandemic cannot keep teachers from teaching. If we must use our document cameras and chromebooks more than we have ever used them before, we will do just that! A life-threatening virus cannot separate a good teacher from her students. She (or he) will find a way!
All over the world, there are administrators, principals, instructional coaches, and teachers working late nights. There are those who are rising early to feed their children breakfast and are staying up late to answer emails. My coworkers have found ways to get both books and meals into the hands of children. Those above me have navigated ways to use technology at home that we’ve never used at home before. They have pioneered the path for new and difficult learning adventures that none of us anticipated a month ago. We never knew we would teach this way, and yet here we are. These people doing hard things? They are moms and dads, as well.
To all of the teacher-moms, I see you balancing your children and your students in a way that is uncharted. I see you managing things with skills that you’ve never before claimed to possess. I see you loving more children from your kitchen table than you ever expected to have at one kitchen table! Am I right? As we sit in our kitchens, there are substantially more children within our reach than there are chairs around the table.
Your lessons and words feel as though they have become ripples in an ocean. The lessons and words leave you and travel far. You cannot possibly see the spaces that the words and lessons reach. But, teacher-moms? Hasn’t that always been the case? Yes, this is new and different, but education has always been about the beginning of something. Teaching a child has always been about the hope of reaching further. We haven’t ever been able to see the ending from our point of view. From the places we sit, education has always been only a beginning, a spark in a bigger fire, a ripple in a vast ocean, and a feather carried by the wind. Our Sovereign God has always known the reach. We truly never have.
To the teacher-moms,
May you spend your days in step with the Creator who loves all of the children under your tutelage. May we begin each day with, “Jesus, take my hand and direct my steps.”
It has always been this way. There have never been enough minutes in the day for the ways we want to love each student and our own children, but there has always been enough of God who loves each of them perfectly.
“He will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in Him.” Isaiah 26:3 {Emphasis mine.}
May we focus on the One who has called us to both teaching and mothering. We have always done these things since the beginning of both callings. It’s just that we haven’t had every minute designated to doing both callings simultaneously until now. And yet, this doesn’t surprise God. He who called us to both mothering and teaching also called us to both in the midst of this very pandemic. I’m not about to tell you that this means that we are able or that God knows that we can manage both. No, not at all. The truth is that God knows that He is able to hold us and to guide us through what we are unable or unequipped to do on our own strength. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. For this very reason, we can take heart in knowing that we alone are not at all enough. May we recognize our weaknesses so that all glory and honor goes to His strength!
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
May we love with our whole hearts as we learn to be more plugged-in than any elementary school teacher has ever longed to be before. If we are overwhelmed, we know where to turn and to Whom we must cling.
“When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” ~Psalm 61:2
May we find our strength in Him as we learn to be strong in the Lord. The children need us. They need to see Him at work in our hearts. May our voices be kind, our words be patient, and our minutes well spent. We may not be enough for all that lies ahead, but we know the One who is able to do so much more. He will equip us to do His work as we rely on Him.
May our hearts, our lessons, and our kitchen tables overflow with the goodness of His grace.
From my heart to yours,
~Courtney
