On Friday, my husband and I toured the middle school our fifth-grade son will be attending next year.  I recognized parents I hadn’t seen in years, since our kids attended different elementary schools.   We had chatted at the playground as we pushed our babies in swings, or may be we had crossed paths at Mommy and Me Music Class.  All had larger waistlines and more wrinkled foreheads than I remembered.   

We listened politely to the middle-school principal.  She didn’t have the soft, sweet voice of an elementary school principal.  She told us how important it was to check our kids’ agenda every day, since our kids might lie to us as to whether they had homework or not.

I stopped listening. 

Walker would never lie to me.  I know Walker will never go near alcohol, or marijuana.  His cheeks will never grow rough whiskers, nor will his armpits stink.  My little boy has only been with me ten years and I’m not ready for him to change into a lying, odiferous youth who would rather hang out with other lying, odiferous males than me. 

I refocused once we started the tour.  We stopped by the gym first, where the eight graders were playing basketball.  Many of the kids seemed tall enough to touch the basketball hoop. Several of the girls were already one or two bra cup sizes beyond my chest.

We moved to sixth grade language arts class. I was relieved that the boys looked like kids, although the girls still looked like teenagers.  The principal asked the students what they liked about middle school.  One freckle-faced boy said he liked having several teachers and moving from class to class, because the day wasn’t so boring.  A girl with long-blond braids said she liked how she met so many new people from the other elementary schools. I asked the kids if they had any advice for us parents.  One brown- haired boy said to tell our kids to do their work, because now they had to get real As, Bs, and Cs: not 1s, 2s, and 3s. 

I gulped. 

I hoped my Walker’s somewhat laissez faire attitude towards homework wouldn’t result in a 2.0 grade point average.

That night, I read Greek myths to Walker.  He positioned his head in the crook of my arm.   I wonder how much longer he was going to do this.   I thought about asking him, but I didn’t want to make him aware that our nighttime ritual will be something he will outgrow. 

 That’s the one advantage I have in this growing up thing.  I know for certain he is going to change, but I don’t think he really believes it is going to happen.

By Beth Touchette

Labels: basketball, Beth Touchette, bra sizes, elementary school, grades, gym class, middle school, Mommy and Me Music Class, principals, teenagers

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My eight-year old is clearly overwhelmed.

I sit in front of the computer listening to, and striving to maintain, some level of empathy for my daughter’s crying jag. But I realize that it’s the byproduct of a life-long collision course in self-discipline. She lies on her bed at once pouting and sobbing.

“I’d rather spend the whole day in bed than do this project!”

And how best do you respond to a third grader who bemoans the fact that she can’t spend her Sunday afternoon shopping with Dad because her first real research project is due in two days? You talk to her. You show her how. You convince her to take the reigns of her own self and break the task into smaller pieces. It’s fun! I used to LOVE homework!

But the yelling and lecture fail. She’s still in uncontrollable tears. I dig for the empathy. (Dig, dig, dig…)

I come from the ethic that you must be responsible and finish your work. Do it the right way, before having fun. And it wasn’t until the freedom of college that I had any sense of option about the matter. It is in this practical mode that I commit the heinous act of erasing a sentence at the end of her report so that she could write more and be factually correct.

She now comes completely unglued. I have to take a step back and be human, not Mom. Not a scholar. Do you remember third grade? After my family moved to Washington D.C., in the sixth grade, I clearly remember being overburdened by school. Arkansas elementary schools hadn’t even required a research project, but once I enrolled in a prep school, there were moments I went crazy from the pressure. The amount of work we’d cram into three to four hours every night seemed relentless.

The top mark, grade A, was rare to come by. B+s were more common. Mother helped me study until she gave it up for her own labors in law school. And I seemed to get the hang of things better once I became more familiar with the study process in general and less naïve about the teacher’s expectations.

I do remember Mom’s sense of empathy and compassion one night. She said, “Lauren, I don’t know how you’re going to get through all this!” Followed by, “You can do it. I know you can.” We had the first quarter of medieval history laid out on the dining room table and an exam the next day. It seems, in retrospect, as if she were saying the same doubt/little cheer to herself, the young, self-conscious wife of a newly-elected official.

My daughter, Lilia, and I popped some popcorn and eventually revisited the table where the project lay in all its vexatious glory. We came up with a plan for the next step and I apologized profusely for erasing her sentence.

Then I said, “You can do it. I know you can.”

By Lauren Cargill

Labels: grades, homework, Lauren Cargill, medieval history

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