The other side of the desk...

My kids are starting preschool. Next week. Yikes… really?

Don’t panic! I won’t bore you with the endless details of the existential realization of my kids growing up. I already did that in a previous blog.

The preschool has a back to school night, before the actual class begins. That was last night. So there I was, among many other parents much like myself. Wait, hold on. Freeze frame. Me, the parent? Of preschoolers? When the heck did that happen? Did I blink for too long?

I’m not the parent. I’m the teacher. I’ve been the teacher for years now. All those back to school nights and such, it’s been ME giving the presentations, not listening to them. Am I on the wrong side of the desk? It feels much more different than I imagined.

Years ago, a wise fellow colleague of mine and I found ourselves in a parent meeting from hell. Mom was furious about something she perceived us to have done, or maybe not done. Whatever the details, she was seriously peeved and not letting it go. My colleague and I both saw “clearly” that her daughter, the student in question, had not done what she needed to succeed and there was little that we could have done differently to help her, without actually doing the work for her. Clearly, we were not seeing eye to eye with mom.

I thought mom was nuts, off her rocker. Did she expect her daughter to get private lessons? My colleague just shrugged and said something to the effect of “it’s complicated”. She is a mother herself and she had experienced the complexities of parenting. I had not yet been blessed with this wisdom. While she did not believe this mom’s anger to be justified on the logical level, she could empathize with the emotional component.

A few weeks ago I sent an email to my twins’ future teacher. She had initiated contact with us and I was replying to the email address she had used.  I filled a page with a myriad of questions, none of which were actually essential until weeks from now. When she replied that my questions would be properly answered in the paperwork that would be arriving in a week or so, I realized. I was acting like THAT PARENT.  You know what I mean… THAT PARENT that needs everything answered immediately. THAT PARENT that doesn’t quite comprehend that his/her kids are not the only ones in the class.

Oh crap… time to back up. I don’t want to be THAT PARENT.

As my kids delve in the world of school and education, I will have to remind myself that my view of their life outside the home is simply one perspective. The teachers will have their own view on what is “really happening”, as will the kids.  

So much to think about.