Mothering the Microcosm

Sometime not long after dawn I abandon my children to experts in the field of early childhood and rush up the stairs of my red brick school house to teach my ten year olds. There are 23 three of them. Two have diagnosed psychological disorders, four take meds for attention deficit, three have severe learning disabilities, fourteen have split parents (with varying degrees of acrimony), three have deceased dads, three had dads who refuse to see them, one has a dad in prison, one has recently been adopted because her birth parents were dysfunctional to care for her... The most organized and emotionally mature of my students is the seventh of eight children and her next oldest brother has Downsyndrome. There's not a Cleaver among them. And my class is as average "Real America" as they come. Nothing exceptional.

On any given day, at least one of them calls me,"Mom," and then practically keels over dead under their desk from embarassment. They call me Mom because I spend seven hours a day with them. I yell at them like their mothers. I encourage them like their mothers. I laugh at their jokes and nag them to clean up their stuff. I care about them like their mothers. I may not love them like their mothers, but I do love them and I spend too many hours at night lying awake wondering how I can be a better teacher for them. Time when I should be wondering about how I can be a better mother to my own children, who I only see for four hours a day. Or time when I should at least be sleeping.