The Widowhood │ Sure, What’s My Dating Handle Going to Be?

One of the things that I like about my job is that one of my co-workers is in her middle-20’s, without kids and is actively dating and trying to meet someone. She keeps it real with me and I appreciate it because while I am not actively dating, she keeps me thinking about it and working over one day trying again and seeing if there is someone out there for me to build a life with.

          The other day she comes in and sits with me by my desk, scrolling through her dating app and becoming increasingly more frustrated with it. Has modern society really made it this hard to find someone? Probably.

          “Did you ever sign back up to e-harmony,” she asks me, flicking down her phone and over whatever app she was on.

          I sigh. “I started to do the personality test and then I just started to cry so I figured that I was probably not in the best mindset to be doing this and I was not ready to try again.”

          “That’s fair. My best guy friend told me last night that my profile was horrifying and that’s why I wasn’t getting anyone interested in me.”

          I paused what I am doing. “Well, do you think he was right?”

          She begins reading to me her profile. I last a couple of seconds before I put my hands up. “Yeah, he is absolutely right. That sounds crazy and demanding and not at all what you should have in a dating profile.”

          “Well! I AM JUST SO TIRED OF IT! I am so tired of something starting and it just falling apart. I am so tired of putting myself out there and it being nothing in the end. How do you start yours when you’re doing it?”

          I chuckle. “I keep it light and honest. I think when I met John mine had said that I was a widow with three kids and that I was looking for something meaningful.”

          “What is light about being a widow with three kids?”

          “Not a whole lot, but it’s honest and I didn’t want someone to be surprised by that because—” She cuts me off.

          “Because you didn’t want someone who was going to leave over the kids and hurt you and the kids,” she says, having listened to me cry many times over the summer about the state of my life.

          I’m teary eyed again. “Yeah, pretty much and then that happened anyway so here we are. I guess I don’t know a whole lot about dating either.”

          “Have you thought about using a free app? Might just get you a couple of dates and gets you out of the house a couple nights? Gives you a break?”

          I snort. “You mean one of those sites that you need to even create a handle for? What would mine even be? Something like widowedmomofthreewithfreshexboyfriendbaggage,” I say flippantly.

          She looks at me and busts out laughing and then suddenly I am laughing with her, a real laugh. One I haven’t had in many weeks and then we’re both laughing so hard that we are in tears, and it hurts to breathe.

          “What,” I manage to choke out, “Is that too crazy and pressure filled?”

          “Yes,” she laughs. “But it is also so perfect all in one.”

          “Do I need a handle for whatever app that you’re using,” I ask, regaining my composure.

          “No, but this one has you answer questions like what is your favorite cry to song.”

          “What is yours,” I ask, tucking my feet up underneath me on my chair.

          “Well, my best guy friend told me I need to set it to ‘Back That Ass Up’ and that would make men message me because it’s funny.” She starts humming the lyrics.

          “And did you?”

          “Oh yeah, I did, and you know what? He was right, men are messaging me asking me why that song.”

          “Maybe we should just have him write our profiles and see where it goes,” I laugh. “I don’t think my issues are the profiles though. I think mine will always be the dead husband, the kids and my John created trust issues over my insecurities about the kids and the dead husband.”

          “The right guy is going to love those kids though and the dead husband is kind of a blessing really, they don’t have to deal with an ex-husband.”

          “You’re not wrong. I just don’t think I’m ready.”

          “You’re not. You’re just out of your first long relationship after being widowed and it’s pretty clear you still love John.”

          I nod, teary eyes returning.

          “But when you are ready, please use that handle and let’s see how it goes,” she says laughing.

          “Maybe we can just do a social experiment.”

          “Don’t tempt me.”

          Ultimately, we decide against doing a social experiment and we sit scrolling through her free dating app and looking at the messages that she got from turning her cry-to song to “Back That Ass Up,” while she sings it loudly.  

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The Widowhood │ Daisy

John and I begin to message back and forth quickly. We start talking a lot of small talk about what we like and things that we do. It isn’t forced and it is not all the time, some days we do not message at all, but there is consistency in our exchanges. I find myself beginning to look forward to them, however small that they are.

          Then one day John mentions something about being at the beach and watching the sunrise. Something I used to do in another life when I was free to roam around and was not raising children. He offers to upload a picture of it to e-harmony so that I can see it, only e-harmony will not approve pictures for your account unless they are of you. In the end, he sends me his number and when I respond in a text message, he sends me a picture of the sunrise at the shore. It’s a beautiful sunrise and it’s framed nicely too, suggesting that beneath his machismo there is a creative streak and maybe even a little bit of an old soul in how he sees the world. This becomes my second favorite picture that he has sent me.

          After that the texting between us seems to grow and I find myself sharing funny stories about my arch nemesis: David the Squirrel who is the obnoxiously fat squirrel that is always doing something that ends with me and the dogs chasing it around the yard with a broom. I sometimes wonder if David is the same squirrel or if I am calling five different squirrels David. John seems to appreciate my squirrel stories.

          “Are you still talking to the guy from the internet,” my mother inquires.

          “Yeah, we’ve been texting a lot more. I have been enjoying getting to know him” I say with a little too much excitement that is enough for my mom to pick up.

          “Is it just texting, or have you guys actually spoken?”

           “So far we have just been texting pretty consistently and talking about small things, nothing major yet.” I immediately want to change the subject. My mother has a way of being very critical of my feelings and of the men that I choose to date. She will find problems where there are none and thus, begin to cause problems where there are none. And this time, I am feeling very protective of John, the internet person who I really enjoy texting and looking forward to his little messages about his life and his days.

          “Would you be as into this man as you are now even if he sounds like Donald Duck?”

          I chuckle. “I really do not think he sounds like Donald Duck.”

          “But…you don’t know that.”

          My mother has now placed the Donald Duck brain worm inside of my head because what if he does sound like Donald Duck? I am already running through a plethora of scenarios inside of my head from him being some kind of weird child predator that wants to get close to me to hurt my kids to what if he is the love of my life to what if I get so wrapped up into him and then one day he looks at me and tells me that he is done because my kids are too much? The mental Olympics that I am putting myself through daily has become exhausting and then the idea of me going through all of this and he sounds like Donald Duck in the end? I think I would be devastated. Then the next side of my overthinking pops in and I begin to question myself as to why I would be devastated if an internet person who I have only been texting sounds like Donald Duck. And then I realize: because I like him.

          In our texting exchanges of that week, we begin to discuss talking on the phone for the first time and I use it as an opportunity to make a couple jokes about what if I sounded like Daisy Duck? Would he still be interested in me? This transpires into an ongoing joke that I don’t think he ever fully understood. We plan on talking that night after I put the kids to sleep. I become eerily calm about the entire thing, and I begin to wonder what his voice really does sound like because my gut feeling is that he does not in fact have a Donald Duck voice.

A little after 8PM that night, I shoot John a text that the kids are asleep and that I was ready to talk when he was. Then, I nervously sit down in my recliner and wait either for him to respond or to call me. He shoots back a text about getting some privacy and that he would call me shortly. I exhale. It’s either Donald Duck or bust!

The quiet of my living room is broken up sometime later with the ringing of my phone. I sit staring at it for several moments before I answer it. I hold my breath and wait to hear his voice for the first time. I think I had even closed my eyes.

I do not remember how he started the conversation that night because we ultimately would become like two teenagers again, staying up for hours on the phone for weeks and being exhausted when our alarms would go off in the morning for work. I loved that innocent time of our relationship though where it was new and exciting, but also comforting.

What I do remember is how it felt to hear his voice for the first time. It was low and calming, strong and soft, but also reassuring. It was a mix of someone that I knew grew up in New Jersey and someone who has spent much of his life moving around the country, with hints and pieces of all the places that he has been. And the first time that I heard it, I was a puddle in my recliner trying to keep my own voice steady and not give a hint of the swarm of little butterflies that had suddenly found their way to my stomach.

We talked for hours that night, Violet had even woken up at one point during it and John had made a sweet comment about hearing her falling back to sleep in my lap. I have fleeting thoughts about maybe this does work out and he won’t be scared off by the idea of a widow with three small children.

Towards the end of our conversation, I even make the joke, “So, are you sure you want to keep talking to a widow with three small kids?”

He laughed. “Well, you being a widow is something that drew me to your profile and now that I know how old Logan is, I assume you were with Phil for a while?”

“Yes, we were married for almost six years and together for almost 10.”

“And he married you which means he could stand you.”

I laughed. “I guess that is a different perspective of marriage and widowhood.”

“It’s late and I am sure you would like to get Violet back to bed.”

“I would, but I have really enjoyed talking to you.”

“Me too, I am twitterpated. Goodnight, Daisy.”

I am thankful he can not see the goofy smile I am sure is plastered across my face. “Goodnight, Donald.”

I click off the call and the room is silent again. I remain sitting in my recliner with my daughter, enjoying the silence. It has somehow changed all together. The room feels different, like the heavy weight that had permeated the house lifted and a new and welcome change is coming through. I am still smiling like an idiot when I ever so gently go back upstairs with Violet and lay down.

I too am twitterpated.

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The Widowhood │ Nighttime Reflections

I was 27 years old when I met my husband.

I was 37 years old when I was burying him.

Three kids, two houses, all of Europe, most of the East coast and a whirlwind of life later, I was alone again.

I had met him on a blind date. A coworker of mine had insisted that I meet him.

We went out to dinner, got coffee and grabbed a movie. And that was it, we were together from that point forward.

I had spent the six years previous to meeting him getting my career together and graduate school completed and dating emotionally unavailable men because I was really still in love with my ex-boyfriend. Though, at the time I would never have admitted that. And then I met my husband, and I thought THIS WAS WHY it all had to play out like it did and wasn’t I glad that it did, because it meant I had found my other half.

I had only ever wanted to get married once and I wanted it to be with the right person. He was the right person for me.

Only God had other plans and now I am sitting up late when I should be asleep, going over my life in my head and wondering what do I do with my life next?

The first six months were almost easy in that I knew it meant that I had to get the house and my life together to maintain my kids’ lives. And I did that. However, now I think about me. What does life have in store for me?

Had you asked me that last summer I would have bubbled over about my book deal and having my last baby.

I am turning 38 this summer and I put the book deal on hold to focus on kids and unless I meet someone with the next couple of years, my daughter will be my last baby. I am okay with that I guess…I just wish I got to have that moment most women have where they choose that they are done and are an active part of letting go of that part of their life. For me, it was chosen for me unless I meet someone who wants kids relatively soon. Just like it was chosen for me that my marriage has ended and I am a widow after only having been married for five almost six years.

Maybe this is me finding my anger in my grief?

I should just crawl back into bed and cry to the Kacey Musgraves version of I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You…if you need a good cry yourself, turn that puppy on. Gets my glasses foggy every time.

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The Hart Home│For My Little Boy

A year ago, I was heavily pregnant with you and struggling to get through each day. I was so exhausted and you were already on your way to being 10 pounds. I was running out of room in my body and you just wanted to stay inside me. I made it too comfortable for you.

I found it hard to breathe or eat or really function outside of the recliner we have. I also was so excited to meet you. In a week from now, I would have labor that would start and stop. We had one full false alarm and then finally when we were well past our due date, they finally induced me, but you still wanted to stay inside.

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An emergency c-section and several complications later and my beautiful baby boy that I had dreamed and prayed for was at last in my arms with his haunting almost black eyes and my face staring back at me.

We had a crazy first year together with me writing my doctoral dissertation and my going back to work way too soon. I have enjoyed every day that I am home with you this summer getting to see you turn from that little baby I brought home to the charismatic, brave and funny little boy you are so quickly becoming.

Getting to know you now as a little boy are the best ways I spend my days. You think so many things are funny and you love cuddling with me. You also love to tell me stories and yell at the TV. You’re walking everywhere and if you can figure out how to climb something, you will.

I find myself falling more in love with you every day, but also, I find myself getting a little sad at the end of each because I know by morning you’re going to be even more of a little boy and less of the baby that I have held and cradled, soothed and rocked, wore and breastfed for the last year. You’re finding your independence and as a mother that makes me very proud because it means I have loved you well, but at the same time, it makes me sad because you won’t need me like you did when I first brought you home.

I catch myself watching you sleep more and cuddling close to you, wanting to get in every last minute of who you are now, smelling your little head and holding your little hands. It amazes me how in another year, you will be so much more like a little boy and again I will feel this bittersweet sadness over your growing up.

No matter how old you are though, you will always be my little prince.

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My New Favorite Phrase

I don’t know why some people take it upon themselves when they learn that a woman is pregnant or is a new mom to vomit all over them unsolicited parenting advice.

I have always found it to be one of the most annoying things about people who choose to do that.

They are a close second to the kinds of people who see you parenting one way and feel the need to comment about how they would do it or how you should do it. They are the absolute worst.

The great big reality of it all is that there are a million ways to parent and be successful at raising kids. And everyone is going to do it differently. When my mom took my son and I home from the hospital since my husband had to go back to work and I was abruptly discharged after almost dying, my mom tucked me into my house and waited for my husband to get home. Then she said to me, “you’ll figure it out. Call me when you want to talk and if not, I’ll call you in a couple days.”

And that was it. And she left me and my husband to figure out our son.

It was the best thing my mom could have done for us. She gave us room to figure out our son and the kinds of parents we were going to be. The truth is, I have taken some things from my mom that I remember growing up and I have added a lot of my own. I also became the kind of mom I never thought I would be: the co-sleeping, breast feeding, holistic kind of mom who believes her son is best at home with either myself or his dad or on the best days, both of us.

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And for our son, I think that is just what he needs. He is almost 6 1/2 months now. He loves food. He loves to cuddle. He loves to crawl and explore, everything. He sits and pulls himself up. He’s figured out how to transfer to other objects when he’s standing to move through the living room. He’s taken a few practice steps with his play stroller. He smiles all the time and loves to interact with the dogs and people. He screams and chatters up a storm. He belly laughs when he watches Behr do Behr things. He’s happy and healthy and secure. Which is exactly what I want him to be at 6 1/2 months old.

As a mother though, I will always get the commentary on what I should do  or how they would do it. However, I have also learned my new favorite response to people who think they have some sort of right to tell me how I raise my kid. And that is the following, very simple phrase:

“That is not how I am choosing to raise my son.”

Unfortunately, there will always be people who feel that they have some right to interject their thoughts or wants onto your child and your approach to parenting. They don’t, but they will continue to do it. So, I just learned to shut it down and keep on being the best mom I am being to my wonderful little boy who amazes me every single day.

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News for this Week.

The Baby: He’s getting big and strong. I read to him Berenstain Bears books and I started to play classical music to him at night. It makes him get super active so I think he either loves or hates it. He kicked my phone off my stomach on Friday. Last night, he found the area of my body that he has yet to really explore: the area known as the land above my belly button. He also kicked me so hard he bounced my hand off. I think to think he’s saying hello. Though it’s probably more like stop poking me, mom, I’m fine. Either way, it’s been pretty cool to see him interacting with the world outside my uterus a little bit.

Overall, I am still pretty calm about impending motherhood. I was very ready to become a mom, and while I didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it did, I am thankful that it did. I am also thankful that my 20-something-year-old self was responsible enough to get disability insurance as well as put into plastic containers the few pieces of baby things I wanted to save from my own infancy for my kids. I recently moved all of my stuff out of the house I grew up in and was shocked at how well I took care of things when everything else was left in shambles by other people.

 

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Sandy Hook, New Jersey…early 90’s.

 

The Doctorate: Whelp, I am eagerly awaiting to hear back from the IRB about whether or not my study is approved. It can take up to 7 business days. They have currently used 2, so hopefully, it will happen sooner rather than later. I’ve begun writing my first couple of chapters including the much-hated literature review. I have found that in going through the process of the doctoral comprehensive exam as well as writing the research plan that you submit to the IRB, a lot of your dissertation is already begun for you. You just need to re-write and re-work it a little to fit the needs of the dissertation requirements.

The House Hunt: We’ve entered the point where we have outgrown our little house. After months of thinking and working towards what turned out to be complete BS which a large part of me knew it would, we’re now left trying to figure out where we plan to live long-term as well as what kind of house we want to invest in for the next 30+ years. Weekends have become open house weekends and after visiting many, I think I may have had my life figured out right years ago. I had always wanted to live by the water and for the last 3 years, I have. I was reminded of that the other day when a storm blew in and while you can’t see or smell the ocean from our house usually, you can smell it during the storms. The entire air fills with salt and seaweed and it’s the most calming scent for me. Funny to think that I was ready to leave it thinking it would be better for my son, but I think that too may have been a mistake. I think as long as our kids are with us, in a stable, non-toxic environment with two parents that love each other very much, that they will turn out to be good, productive adults.

I am hoping we find something soon that pushes us to list our townhouse and we get to move on to the family house that I would really like to one day hand down to one of our kids. I know, it’ll be the cliche generational beach house, but there is something to cliches.

Looking Forward to: The summer, mostly. We’ve entered the phase of the school year where it is full-on testing and test preparation. It’s boring to me, I’d rather be reading good books and teaching. I’m also finding it hard to be standing all day at this point and am happiest in my recliner. I am looking forward to being home this year and for Logan to finally get here.

I think most of the big transitions and craziness have already happened for this year and now we’re entering into a calmer period. Probably the calm before the storm that will be Hurricane Logan this summer, but after such a crazy year, I will take the peacefulness for awhile.

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The Week That Was: Oh Baby & Doctoral Comps

My week started off with a trip to the ultrasound place. We both were looking forward to it for a week because we would have gotten the envelope that had the sex of our baby in it.

Only, baby had other plans. The moment that she put the wand on to my stomach, we looked up and saw that our baby is very much, in fact, a boy. Phil’s heart had been set on a gender reveal party next weekend, but after that, we pretty much called and told everyone our news.

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I knew he was a boy from the moment I found out that I was pregnant. Sometime in my late teens/early 20’s I had a dream that I was in a room with all of these babies. They all looked too small to even walk, so I was shocked to see them running around. I followed them up a flight of stairs until one fell backward and into my arms. I was amazed by how beautiful he was with his soft blond hair and huge blue eyes. A voice from behind me told me that his name was Dylan and that he “wasn’t ready for me yet.” Then I woke up.

I knew I had met my future son, and I knew eventually he would be ready for me. I just knew that this was him when my 5 pregnancy tests all turned positive. Only, Dylan never really fit him and for the longest time, I wanted to name my son John Dylan, John for my grandfather and Dylan for the dream. Phil is on this Phil the third thing, but I really feel that it’s too much to put on a kid and kids need their own names and their own identities.

We’ve been kicking around John Philip which I really love because it honors both grandfathers who are no longer with us and it gives our son his own identity. We have time to decide, but I’m really rooting for the latter choice. I was very close to my grandfather when he was alive and I know that I was his favorite. I took his death really hard in high school and in a lot of ways, I think losing him really put me on the path I took as an adult. He would be nearly 100 years old today. I wonder what he would think of all of this and how he must be up there smiling thinking about becoming a great-grandfather.

I thought this was going to be my big news for the week, but it seems that life also had other plans. Yesterday as I checked my phone for the time, I saw a gmail notification from my university. I didn’t breath the entire time the e-mail loaded. Coming in a whole FIVE DAYS before I was supposed to receive my results, it was the email containing my pass/fail notice on my doctoral comprehensive exam.

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And…I PASSED!!! I am officially a doctoral candidate and am now only waiting for my university to assign my doctoral mentor and committee before I plunge into dissertation. If I follow my plan, I will be done in a year and a half. I really can’t wait. I even hope I get there sooner because I am ready to be done and moving on with my life and career.

Pretty crazy week, eh?

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Happy Halloween!

This is one of my favorite days. I love pumpkins, and the colors and the cooler temperature. I love how for one day out of the year you can be whatever you want to be. I love hearing the kids in my neighborhood running around and  ringing doorbells. I love doing something special for my students.

This year my grade level team decided to dress up as character from Hocus Pocus. Only…no one got it. Have I officially become….old? Granted they were distracted by the fact that one of the male teachers is one of the Sanderson sisters and I got to be crummy Allison so my costume looked more everyday than it did costume, but COME ON!

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Hocus Pocus is one of the best movies. It was the first movie I ever got to see in a movie theater. And it came out not around Halloween and I remember it pouring rain, but my mom took me to see it anyway that day. And it was just the coolest. 

I may have then spent home room projecting movie photos and explaining it to them. It was in that moment I felt so old. When I first started teaching, I was in my early to mid-20’s and the kids just liked me because I was young. Add in the fact that I look like I’m 12, and kids saw me more as of an older, cooler peer than an authority person. And that worked for years, but more recently, I have noticed the shift where I have become the authority figure and though I am enjoying every moment of that, at the same time, I am a little sad that my references are now….outdated.

Kids these days need to brush up on their movies because if they don’t know this one, then they sure are missing out on some great flicks.

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Seasons of Your Life

Women are different then men. We think differently, we respond to the world differently, we approach life differently and more even more noticeably, we age differently.

For men, I think life is a long continuous line of experiences and outcomes. They are born, they grow, they become old and they pass on. Women, of course, do the same, but it’s so much different for a woman.

Women age in seasons.

And each season is compartmentalized with old wants and desires, dreams and achievements that you know you will only have a chance to hit at certain points in your life. Women are much more aware of the limits of time and how time takes all. 

Looking back at my own life, which I have been doing a lot lately as I prepare to become a wife, I can categorize big chunks of time. There was of course my childhood, my adolescence, my first real boyfriend, college…

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My first real love.

Not that I didn’t love my first boyfriend, but there the first time you fall in real love as an adult it is very different from the high school/college boyfriend that was probably most if not all of your firsts.

There’s the inevitable heart break from that first real love.

Then there’s your wine-fueled 20’s where you are working on your career, but not really settled and since you’re not over your first real love, you’re just dating idiot after idiot because the only time they can ever really hurt you is when they do something that reminds you of that great big let down that was your first real love.

Out of nowhere your life will begin to settle. You’ll finish graduate school maybe. You’ll find a stable job, you’ll eventually get to ditch the room mates and take on a cat or two. You’ll get so busy with your own life that the drama of your 20’s seems to die down and you’re no longer spending Thursdays at the bar with your girlfriends drinking too much wine and going to dark scary places of thoughts borrowed from TV shows.

You’re so busy in fact that you don’t even see the real, big love coming. You’re not really dating jerks anymore or any really because your life has become your job and the life you’re building for yourself. You kind of like it that way too, it’s easier to just worry about yourself and your fur-babies.

Then it happens, the blind date that you reluctantly agree to go on because your new work friend is just so excited to be introducing you to her friend. You had talked to him for a little bit on Facebook and it flowed well enough, he seemed to like your jokes and had some of his own. Before you know it though, there’s that instant spark and without either of you really planning it, you’re together from that moment forward.

He’s the only guy that will bring flowers to your mom when he meets her for the first time. And as he’s courting you he brings flowers to you whenever he’s thinking of you which is often. He holds doors for you and since it’s the winter when you meet he starts carrying a blanket around in his car because he knows how cold you get, you find it absolutely endearing when he tucks you into your seat each time even if it’s only a 5 minute car ride. It’s easy to love him and it’s even easier to be yourself, the good and the bad around him.

You blink again and suddenly you’re a tenure teacher and becoming a leader in your field. You buy a house and for the first and only time in your life, you agree to live with someone and it’s the best decision that you ever made because you slowly watched as your love for each other grew and changed until he asked you to marry him and you accept without hesitation.

You plan a beautiful wedding at the venue you fell in love with long before you ever met him. You enjoy your year long engagement but before you know it, you’ve blinked again and it’s fall, the season of your wedding.

Your shower comes and goes, you’ve cleaned your house out of most of the old stuff that came from apartments and past lives, making way for an entirely new life with your husband. Suddenly, you’re home from your best friend’s house where you held her baby all day and you’re cleaning out your guest room for wedding guests, eagerly selling and throwing out artifacts of former dreams and suddenly a new one really begins to take hold…

When your guest room starts to look empty and you label a few more pieces of apartment furniture for Facebook marketplace and begin to think about your best friend’s baby and how suddenly ready you are to turn your guest room into a baby’s room.

And just like that, you’re into your 30’s, ready to become a wife and mother, and for the first time in many years, that sounds just exactly like what you want to do even if it means you have to slow down in other parts of your life and not work 80 hour weeks.

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The Secret to Success as an Urban Educator

I saw a status from someone who began teaching around the time that I was deciding to commit to teaching myself. She wrote that her former students were shocked that she had had a baby and that just because she has high expectations and wasn’t a “nice” teacher doesn’t mean she wasn’t a nice person in life.

Seeing that, just dumbfounded me. Particularly because we both teach in inner cities and teach special education populations, her more so than me as I am not a special education teacher, but for the majority of my years in the inner city, I had volunteered to be the general education teacher in inclusive classrooms for my grade level.

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And there is a side to teaching wherein if you want to be successful, meaning you help students achieve academically in your subject area, then you have to have high expectations, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t love your kids as well or that you have to be “a not nice teacher” to communicate those expectations. With city kids, that means being consistent in your judgement, consistent in your love and your criticism as well as being flexible and truly listening to what these kids have to say.

The majority of the students I have taught remain in contact with me, updating me on their lives and their dreams. They visit sometimes and when they do, it’s always with big hugs and excitement. That is how I know I am successful in what I do. Sure, I have years of data that back me and show my administrators that I am successful in teaching kids how to read and bringing them towards career and college readiness, but that’s not all there is to teaching.

I remember the first time a student called me mom. Continually. Later, when I asked them why I had become their mom I was told it was because they knew that I was there for them, even when they were acting a fool. They knew that they could come to me with anything and I would do my best for them. That was when I knew that I was on the path of becoming the kind of teacher I knew that urban kids needed.

Urban kids are different from your suburban kids that come from nice homes, with semi-intact families and better financial support systems. Urban kids are often starting school well below their suburban counter parts because of the environments they are raised in, they often have parents or grandparents working multiple jobs meaning they’re home alone more times than not or in state-funded daycare. Urban kids are also semi street smart, because really, kids are also kids in any environment and come into school with an attitude more times than not because they feel like they don’t fit.

However, if you hold these kids to a high expectation of achievement as well as give them them the empathy and love that so many just need, then you are not only going to have success in their academics, but you’re also going to have success in helping to raise a better future in that, your love and acceptance may be what sets that kid up for an entirely different path in life.

Within urban education, I firmly believe all students need it. Some more than others, specifically kids with difficult home lives and worse yet, the kids that have spent their lives in and out of the system. If you pursue your teaching career in an inner city district, you have to become an educator with clear expectations as well as someone who will become another mother or father towards the kids that you are working to educate.

And I carry that belief with me in everything I do. For instance, the college class I am teaching this summer is at the city campus. It took me less than 5 minutes to e-mail the students who missed the first class to just remind them that class was today. Within 30 minutes, I even had one show up late to class.

Sometimes, you just have to be that person for other people. If you want to be a successful teacher, you need to remember that you have chosen a profession where you are in service to others.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck Hart2 Comments