When I worked as a teacher and looked after groups of 11 to 20 children, parents often would say “I don’t know how you do it!”.
I always laughed it off and I really appreciated the acknowledgement. It is tough work and it requires a type of personality that not everybody has. You have to really love being around all children all the time, and you need to have genuine passion for the role.
On the other hand, now that I am a mum myself, I often think I would like to go back and tell those parents “This is NOT harder than what you do every day”. Being a teacher is difficult, challenging and tiring at times, but my two require so much more of my physical, and especially mental energy, that any group of children I looked after as a teacher ever did. Being a parent can be a whole new level of tough work, and the effects it has mentally and emotionally are very different from those related to a teacher. I have met other early years teachers along the years who would say they went to work "to get a break" from the chaos that being a parent can be sometimes.
Children are generally going to behave different, normally better, in the classroom environment than at home. I guess it makes sense, we all try to be our best versions of ourselves in work, don't we? When we have a bad day we're going to try our very best to regulate and act as if nothing happened, but then we come home to our family, partner, friends, and feel comfortable enough to act the way we actually feel. We may even take it out on someone who we care about just because we've spent so much energy on keeping it together for other people during the day. Mix this with the emotional stability of a 2, 3 or 4 year old and Boom, you got yourself a homemade Molotov Cocktail.
There are mornings that, by the time I drop them to school, I fully feel like I've run a triathlon. Every morning we need to complete the same basic tasks to get everyone ready and out of the house but every morning also feels like an obstacle course that would make Ireland's Fittest Family look like a walk in the park. On the show at least the 4 team members are trying to help each other. In our house, it feels like the twins are in the opposite team running a completely different course. And all that is only the first hour and a half of the day.
I remember being a teacher was busy, messy, very noisy... but I also remember that the noise stayed in the classroom. I didn't have to take it shopping, or out for lunch, to run errands or even to the shower.
But, of course, the main difference is the mental and emotional work. Parents are constantly thinking about their children, about what they need, what they want, where to bring them, how to entertain them, what to feed them, planning and scheduling around their routines... It is all for them and because of them, they become the number 1 priority in life and everything else revolves around them. And all of this happens in the background while you're getting them ready, bringing them places, going to work, collecting them, cooking, arguing, cleaning, tidying, arguing again (there's just so much arguing with little people), shopping, making snacks (so many snacks), and simply doing all the things that need to be done every day when you're a parent.
And while they don't realise how much you do for them yet, they will give you a squeeze here, and a kiss there, they may run to your arms when you collect them from school, they will say a random "I love you", draw a picture for you, or tell you your t-shirt is "so cool", so that you can recharge your internal battery and do it all again tomorrow.
So, to any parent reading this, yes, you know that your kid's teachers is amazing, but you... You play in a whole different league of real-life Superheroes.
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