It must be the summer

I tend to become disheartened as the winter turns to spring. I feel like I have given everything to fundraisers, my kids' beginning school days, PTA committees, my class back to school night and parents of my new students. I spend my time trying to make the new school year an amazing and exciting experience for my 4 kids, 1 husband, 25 students and 50+/- parents. I say that because one student may have 4 parents or only 1 parent. Sometimes a stuedne t has 2 half time parents or 1 foster parent or 4 parents that operate for 1/2 year each. What can a person do to meet the need sof all these children and all these families? The answer is nothing significant. Without God, not one of these families will be able to do their best. So, I must keep each family in my hopes and prayers while focusing on the 6 people that mean the most to me.

What happens to MY family each spring, and each fall? I can tell you. By winter and spring, my husband and I are ready to trade each other in. How can you spend all day trying to help kids from 25 or 125 families, then come home and have the energy to help your own. You start to think you have so much that your kids are well off without your effort. So you try to relax and block out reality. Take a break, you say to yourself. You deserve it. That works until you hear the other parents talking about advanced math and the University Brass Symposium that their 7th grader just joined.

Shit!! Now you have supremely gifted and talented students that are able to succeed on their own, but they are being superseded by the children of hyperactive parents. I had no idea I could request an extra-special schedule that defies middle school expectations. Now I have been proven to be an inferior parent.

And while all this weighs heavy on my mind, the main concern I have is me spousal relationship. My husband and I can no longer get along. It's ironic to marry a person who has the same professional passion, but has an outdated family perspective. I married a man who defied all stereotypes. He had a degree and a job. He was making a living. He gave it all up and asked his parents for money to learn to be a teacher. We met in teacher classes, but he seemed like he wasn't serious. WHile he had disdain for the coursework, he was serious about his goal. more to come