Back to School Nightmare

Dear Irie,

I'm heading back to school to start a new year. Two nights ago, I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. It was the night before the first day of school, and I had had one of those back to school dreams. Only this wasn't one of the usual ones where I show up on the first day and have none of my papers run off and no plan of what to do, or where I find out they've moved me to the auditorium with 60 kids who don't give a damn that I'm talking to them. No, this one was a first and it took my breath away.

This one was about a school shooting. 

I have never in 13 years of teacher dreams dreamed of a school shooting and it was a little horrifying. 

It reminded me of some real talks I had to have this past school year, both at home and in my classroom. On Valentine's Day, 17 people were killed at a high-school in Florida. You and your brother asked questions about the things you heard your dad and I talking about, and I tried to answer those questions without scaring you. And that is such a thin line. I do not want you to be scared to go to school. I do not want you to be scared for your dad and I to go to school. But- the truth is it's a potentially scary place.

One day a couple of weeks after the shooting, my students asked me: "If you were a receptionist in the front office and someone came in with a gun and told you to tell everyone to go to the gym, would you do it?" 

My first reaction was of course not, but these are inquisitive teenagers and as the saying goes, "you can't bullshit a bullshitter", so I took a second to think of a better answer, because no, I would not send a school full of children to their deaths, if I could help it. They took my silence as an answer, immediately assuming that answer was yes. 

Finally, I said no. No, I would hope in that moment I could think of something that I could say over that intercom that would let the rest of the school know what was going on without getting me instantly killed. 

They didn't believe me. "Why wouldn't you just do it?" they asked. 

"Because then you all would get hurt," I told them. You would have thought I spoke another language from the looks on their faces. 

"I know you are 14 and 15," I explained, "but you are still kids."

One girl rolled her eyes and said she hates when grown-ups say that. 

"No," I continued. "I don't mean you aren't smart or mature or capable of making decisions. I mean you are someone's child."

"And you're someone's mother," a girl up front reminded me, as if that one fact doesn't drive every moment of my life. 

I nodded. That's why I wouldn't do it. I went on to explain. "Every day I send my babies to school, and I can't be there to protect them. I trust that their teachers and the adults in their school would do everything in their power to save them, if necessary. Your parents have entrusted me with the same task." 

"You would do that?" they asked, and again I nodded. 

You see, Irie, I never want to leave this world, not as long as you and your brothers are in it. And I sure as hell never thought these were questions I would have to answer when I declared secondary education as my major. And if it all hits the fan one day, I may pee myself and cry for my mama- but I would like to believe I'm made of tougher stock than that. I love you and your brothers, and I know someone loves my students just as fiercely, and most days I even love them a little bit too :) I hope I never have to find out how far I would go to save them, to send them back home to their parents, but I don't think I could live with myself any other way. 

Which brings me back to my dream. 

I wasn't in any actual school that I have ever been in, but the students were ones I have taught, and, in the dream, you and your brothers were somewhere in the building without me. 

I heard the shots as I stood outside the cafeteria, and I knew instinctively what they were and that I needed to hide. Only, there was nowhere to hide. I helped those that I could get away and then I just crouched, praying that I wouldn't be seen. But as the gunman got closer, and my position exposed, I knew it was no use. He looked down at me, this student that I have taught and laughed with, and he held a huge gun in his hand. "She taught Chin," some other voice said, "she was good to him." The shooter nodded, fired a random shot off to the side of me and kept walking. I turned and watched as they continued on their way and another kid high-fived them and then they were captured. 

I got up from my spot and ran to the doors just as children came pouring out. In that group was your older brother. I collapsed on the ground and pulled him into my arms and wept as I rocked him, repeating "I am so sorry. I am so sorry." Because although he was physically unharmed, it was not my doing. I had not kept him safe. Sometime while I rocked him, he morphed into your younger brother who will start kindergarten next week, and I cried even harder. Five-year-olds don't know anything about school shootings or intruder drills, but that will all soon change. 

I woke up and looked at the clock. 3:32 glared back at me. I used to not be able to sleep the night before school started back, because I was so excited about what the year would bring or slightly worried about teaching those 60 kids in the auditorium. I've never been worried that I won't be able to reach you and your brothers when you need me or that I might not be able to get someone else's kids to safety. These were not things I thought of in 2005 when I walked into my first high school classroom, but 13 years, 3 kids and too many school shootings to count have changed the way I see the world. 

I don't share this to scare you. I feel safe in my school. I have felt safe in every school I have ever taught in, but I won't lie and say the thought doesn't linger in the back of my mind, or that I don't scan rooftops and tree lines during fire drills. 

And I will forever be sorry that I haven't been able to make this world a safer place for all my children (both biological and scholastic). 

Love,

Mama 

To parent or not to parent? It's not even a question!

Dear Irie,

We went to Chuck E Cheese today, and I am utterly convinced that I was being punished for some terrible crime against humanity that I was unaware I had committed. I don't like crowds, but I manage, and so the fact that it was probably dangerously close to breaking some kind of fire code in that place, the crowd wasn't the problem. It was the people (parents) within the group.

I try very hard to teach you and your brothers the right way to behave in the world. Not because there is always going to be someone there to punish you if you don't, but because sometimes something is just the right thing to do. So when I make you wait in line only to have two little girls run up and break in front of you when it's your turn, it frankly pisses me off that their mother is nowhere to be found. Actually strike that, because I did find their mother chatting with a friend as I and another mother asked her daughters to step back.

And then as you and your brother were spending your tickets on prizes, Andrew picked a ring with a mustache on it, and the little girl next to him got right in his face and said, "boys don't wear rings." Any time that I have ever heard you or your brother say "ugly" things to other children, I have reprimanded you. I may not always make you apologize, but I always explain to you why you shouldn't have done that. But this mother, she said nothing.

I'll admit that when it comes to parenting there are a billion ways to do it and get it right, there is no perfect way and honestly, most of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing. However, I have a hard time with the way parents like these allow their children to do whatever they want at the expense of the children around them. True, neither of you were devastated, except you were not happy that you had waited and you thought these girls were going to take your turn. I think it's more my problem than yours. It's hard to teach you kids how to be good; it would be so much easier to tell you to do whatever you want. And part of me wonders if I am doing you an injustice by making you patient and kind, afterall, isn't it the squeaky wheel that so very often gets the oil? It certainly seemed to be the case when I was in the work world.

So I am stumped, sweet girl, do I say screw it and tell you to take what there is to take and speak your mind when you feel like it or do I keep fighting the good fight? Do I keep trying to make you think through your words and your actions, and does it make you weaker if I do that?

The truth is I don't know, though we both know which path I'll choose and I will continue to worry and wonder that I am doing it right, and you will continue to say "but he" or "but she" when some other poor child is poorly parented, though it looks like so much more fun from your point of view.

All I can hope is that one day you will thank me for not letting you become an arrogant and spoiled adult who thinks the world owes them. And at the very least, your teachers will like you.

Love you,

Mama