I Did Not Sign up For This. COVID-19.
Dear Parents…working parents, side gigging teachers, outnumbered single parents, stay at home overwhelmed moms and dads…
It is Monday, Week Three, COVID-19, and the beginning of…I didn’t sign up for this.
While I know COVID19 is affecting everyone in very personal and different ways, todays’ blog is just for todays parents. No matter how old your children are, no matter how well behaved, no matter how independent they were just 6 short weeks ago…this…is surely not what you signed up for.
I am not going to tell you to get organized and suck it up. Instead, as a mother of four, a retired teacher of 25 years, a Life/Business Coach, I want you to know…I see you, I hear you, I feel your pain, your worries, and your panic. I see you on Skype, Zoom, Google Hangout…I see tissues, kids falling to the floor in tantrums, I see the fear in your eyes that you cannot pull this off.
Listen to me. You can.
I can say that with confidence because I have taught Kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade and small group instruction in 4th and 5th grade as well. And bad days, many in fact, I just thought, I can’t do this. But I did. Because I had to. Because it was my commitment to your children. On good days I had an unreasonable sense of confidence. Not just that I could teach your children, but that I could be your stand in for the day, offering love, laughter, and support, all while teaching them the meaning of life, friendship, compassion. I believed I could teach them art, while teaching math, and instill human kindness while teaching poetry. I even believed during safety drills cowered in corners that I could protect them…from harm, from hurt, from pain and failure.
Many of the expectations I had, lead only to disappointment. But I kept on.
I can still hear my mothers whispers of worry to me after completing graduate school. “How will you know how to teach them?”
I didn’t really. But I believed that beyond knowledge and books, I could look into their eyes, and then deep in my own heart, and that I would just know.
And yet, there were days, weeks, months, that I thought…I didn’t sign up for this. Not the crying of the 7 year old under the table who had bigger worries than the math I was about to present. Not the stoic 8 year old little girl who had just lost her mother to suicide and not the violent 5th grader who was trying to stabilize in his 3rd school that year…
No, but I signed on to teach. Many did that. I see you, though and know for sure, you did not.
To you, my friends, family, acquaintances, strangers…you did not and is why I am showing up on your screen today. You, with the tissues ready at hand, the lump in your throat, the pressing on your chest at the mere suggestion of Monday, Week three…you CAN do this.
But this morning, you will need to pause, hit the reset button, find your inner voice, the power of your breathe…and then in that stillness, connect with your child’s eyes. The color, the shape, the way they look back at you, while you let it resonate with the depths of your soul. This child, your child, is as frightened as you are, if not more, and needs you more than ever.
Yet not in the way you think. You will not have all the answers. You may not even understand half of what is on your plate. You may not have the patience for teaching, working and relationships all at one time. I get it. I would be lying if I said your children or mine never brought me to my knees.
We will do it together as we reframe today.
It is Monday, March 30, 2020. The beginning of a new day. A new week. A new design of this normal that is surely temporary. We do not have to get through the whole week, not even the whole day. Just this moment. All we need is a plan, one that is bendable, one that allows you to change the rules as you go, one that allows everyone the space to breathe, laugh and play, in between all that needs to get done. One that allows you to start over every hour if need be.
You can do this. If you can remember that everything you need, you already have, you CAN do this. And that when all else fails, and things go sideways, you can rely on choosing the one thing that is needed. Love. No matter how hard or tough this gets, pause, look deeply in the eyes of your kitchen-filled classroom, and tell them how much you love them.
In the beginning and in the end, love is all we have ever had. And love is all we need. The rest will be…the rest.