Sasee Magazine

“Bye, Sweethearts, have a wonderful day!” I called to my children as they boarded the bus for the first day of the new school year. I sniffed and wiped my eyes.

“Oh, Honey, it’s only a half-day. They’ll be home again before you know it,” my husband, Eric, said with a sympathetic smile.

I sniffled again and began walking back up the driveway toward our house. “It’s not that.”

Eric nodded knowingly. “All kids grow up. I know it’s hard and the time passes quickly, but we have no control over that.”

“It’s not that either,” I said.

Eric shrugged. “All right, I give. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

I shrugged back at him, struggling to voice my feelings. “It’s just that, well, I was supposed to go back to school today too.”

“Ah, now I get it,” he said. “You’re feeling at loose ends because you didn’t go back to teaching this year.”

I nodded. “I’ve been a teacher for more than a decade, and teaching is something that gets ingrained in a person.” I shrugged again, feeling helpless, and added, “It was a big part of who I am.”

Eric rubbed my shoulder. “It will always be a part of who you are, but now you’re going to give writing a shot. We talked about this, and it was what you wanted.”

“I know. I just didn’t realize it would feel so strange not returning to school.”

Eric’s hand moved from my shoulder to my abdomen. “Plus, we’re going to work on having a baby.”

I smiled. “I know, and it’s going to be great to be a stay-at-home mom this time around. I am looking forward to that more than I can even express. But today, not going back to school feels a little bittersweet.”

Throughout that morning, I stewed over my mixed emotions. I was thrilled to finally have the chance to stay at home with my kids. Over my years as a teacher, I’d missed them while we were apart and truly cherished my summers at home with them. And the chance to have another baby was a blessing I could hardly even imagine. I was also incredibly grateful to be given the opportunity to pursue a writing career. Since I was a little girl I’d dreamed of being a writer.

But I’d also dreamed of being a teacher. And that was the root of the problem. I should have been deliriously happy. But instead, I felt lost.

Because if I wasn’t a teacher, who was I? I’d always taken pride in being someone who made a difference in this world. I was one of the good guys, someone who spent my days showing little kids how to add and read, refereeing playground disputes and demonstrating good manners. I did all of this for practically peanuts, and I loved every minute of it.

But no more. Now I was just a mom. Well, and a “wanna-be” writer.

I sighed and sat down at the computer to check my email. One of the messages that popped up was from my online teacher’s support group. I’d been a member for years, but now I felt like a fraud, like I was no longer worthy to be in the group – or even read their emails. I almost deleted the message unread, but something told me not to. I opened it, and my eyes filled with tears as I read the old Jewish proverb: “One mother teaches more than 100 teachers.” The point of the email was to encourage teachers to work as partners with their students’ parents to maximize the kids’ success, but I’d stopped reading after I saw the proverb. That was the only part that mattered. In my mind, those words were written just for me for that exact moment.

“One mother teaches more than 100 teachers.” Those words were not meant to take anything away from what teachers do every day, but more to give credit to the mothers who lead their children by example. Mothers don’t have textbooks and chalkboards. They don’t use curriculum guides and standardized tests. They teach with common sense, patience and, most of all, love.

The words acted as a salve to my torn emotions. The words meant that I was still a teacher, but my classroom size had shrunk. I was still a teacher, and now I was doing it where it counts the most.