It’s Either Your Child or Mine!
As teachers, were often choosing between our students and our own children without even realizing it. That choice can often be harder than most would think, but there was one time when the choice was clear.
This one is for my teachers that are also parents. About a year ago I had my 1st “viral” TikTok post. Okay, maybe not viral but 44k views, 4k likes, 550 comments, and over 100 saves is viral to me lol.
The post was one of those unpopular teacher opinions and mine was “I do not take conferences with parents before or after school”. I stated that if a parent needs a conference, it must be during my work hours because I’m not paid otherwise. While lots of teachers agreed and even most parents, there was still a handful of people that thought I was just being unreasonable and wrong. Sidenote: There were quite a few teacher misconceptions that came up in the comments and I’ll address a few in another post. Now a lot of people thought it was just about money, and if it were about the money I obviously wouldn’t be a teacher. It’s about my time. Specifically, the amount of time I was taking away from my daughter to give to my students.
Teachers, have you ever felt like you were making a choice between your child(ren) and your students?
I’m at the place in my life and career now where I have no problem only working during my contract hours, but there was a time when that wasn’t the case. Before having my daughter, I gave all my time to my students. I would arrive super early and allow students whose parents dropped them off early to wait in my class. Which meant I was giving up my planning period. I’d wait for hours after school for conferences with parents that never showed up and everything. It wasn’t until I got pregnant with my daughter and had a difficult parent stressing me out that I finally decided to put my family first.
It was my 6th year in education, I had been married for a year and ½ and was pregnant with my daughter. I had a student in my class that I adored but she was really struggling academically, and her parents didn’t seem to care much. I had been requesting conferences for months with no luck. It wasn’t until I reached out to the grandparents that I got someone to agree to come in. Mom showed up and brought grandma with her, which turned out to be a blessing. During the meeting mom seemed very uninterested. I’m showing her the students’ work and she’s rolling her eyes at me. I’m pleading with her to help me help her child and the conversation went exactly like this.
Mom- ‘You keep sending homework that she can’t do. She can’t read!”
Me- “I understand that, but with that attitude she’ll never learn to read. I’m giving it my all, but you have to do your part and help her at home! She’s 1 of 18 in this class and I do as much as I can, but she needs you’re support.”
Mom- “You wasting my time and..”
Me- “…and I won’t waste any more of it”. I stood up. “I wish you and your child the best of luck. I will continue to work her in class and you’re free to go”
Yes I did interrupt her and maybe I was wrong for that, although I don’t feel like I was. Mom gets up and walks out of my room, but grandma stays behind and starts crying. Grandma was pleading with me not to give up on the student and saying that she feels like she failed her child (the mom) and didn’t want to fail her granddaughter. I had to be real with grandma and let her know that this situation was stressing me out! I’m not about to go back and forth with a parent about helping THEIR child. I had been overextended myself by rescheduling my doctors’ appointments to stay and tutor her grandchild and I’m done.
Grandma agreed to step in and pick up the slack for mom, and I continued to work with the student during the school day, but I cut out all the extra stuff. It sucks that parents sometimes ruin things for their children but that was the situation that pushed me to put my family and homelife first. Now when I walk out of those gates at 3:10 (because I AM leaving on time) I leave everything from the school day at school, both mentally and physically.
Teacher Moms… and Teacher Dads, do you struggle to put your family first? Have you had any similar situations happen to you? Leave a comment and let me know. Let’s talk about it.
