In Love with Two Lives: Finals and Motherhood

Today is my first day off after working for eleven days straight.  Three of those days were back to back thirteen hour shifts.

I work at a tutoring center that caters mostly to high school students.  The work is perfect for me for many reasons.  First and foremost, it allows me to be home with my toddler every day until either my husband or my brother (who lives with us) gets home from his day job.  I only miss the last quarter of her day. Second, the work is truly rewarding.  There are only a handful of people (if that) that I know who I consider sincerely good, through and through.  Positive, happy people, who challenge the cynic in me.  Ninety percent of this handful I have met at work.  One of them is my boss.  I am surrounded by goodness when I go to do work I love.  I enjoy the subjects I teach/tutor (often it really is teaching).  I began at the center tutoring kids preparing for the SAT and ACT.  I have degrees in English and Comparative Literature, so helping kids with grammar and reading comprehension seemed like something I would enjoy.  But it got even better.

Less than a year into my work there, my boss (the owner) called a meeting for his Humanities tutors.  There were four of us at the time, and he wanted to discuss our program.  At the time, we had a few History students who would come in to the center for a little help at random, but nothing regular, and he mentioned that our History program used to be vibrant and that we should be able to make that program grow again.

This small aside to a discussion largely about English and SAT struck a cord with me.  I have always loved history.  It was a major focus in my literature classes because I studied minority and women's literature, which required a lot of context for discussion.

I could do this.  I could grow our History program.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I started my job as a fun part time, eighteen hours a week gig.

As I started saying yes to the many requests for the varieties of History subjects taught at high school, my knowledge grew, my interest grew, and my hours grew.

When I said, once again to my boss, "I mentioned to one of my students that he should come see me for help with his AP US History class when he needs it,"  My boss said, "Shanna, it's wonderful that you are growing the program, but where are we supposed to put all these new students?  You don't have any more hours available on your schedule."

Oh.

So this year I came back from summer to a thirty two hour week.  And I have rarely had a calm moment, a free hour without a student, to stay ahead of the crazy ball I started rolling.  I worked every single hour possible this last week of finals for my students.  Most hours I had more than one student at a time.  I taught World History, US History, AP European History, AP US History, American Governement, and AP American Government.  Many of my days consisted of switching among all of these subjects, taught by different teachers, at different schools, with different study guides.  And many of my students remembered nothing from their classes.

I had a blast.  It is the most fulfilling work I have ever done.

On my very last day, beaten down by exhaustion, my second to last student sat in front of me, after an hour and a half of a two hour session and said to me, "I have learned more in my time here with you today than I have all semester.  Most days in History I am bored after forty minutes, and I can't wait to get out of there.  Here, I can't believe the time is almost up."

Incredible.  It blew my mind.  I am a superhero at work.

And there is still so much more to do.  I have so much data to compile from these lessons, I have learned so much from my students, from teaching them, tutoring them, and I have to record it all while it's still fresh.  And then there's another whole semester to tutor through and prep for June's finals.

I love my work.

But I'm a mom.

It is quite the dilemma.  I am a full time mom working an almost full time job.  And I am madly in love with both of those occupations in such different ways.  I am a better mom because I have work that I am passionate about, and I am a better tutor because I am invested in Histroy, and education in general, as a parent.

For finals week, in order to ease the pain I knew my daughter would experience having me gone for three straight days, me, a mom she is accustomed to seeing all day every day, I asked my own mom to come visit.

Grandma.

Grandma showed up with armloads of movies, a cookie press, and boxes of sugar.

Okay, maybe not boxes of sugar.

But only because they probably wouldn't fit in the back seat of her new Camaro.

Yea, for years my mom has wanted two things, to be the owner of a badass car and to be the best grandma in the world.

I swear she is more excited about being a grandma than she ever was about being a mom.  And who could blame her?  She shows up here and my kid goes crazy.  Celaya could have cared less when I left each morning at 830 AM.

"Bye Mama."  She blew me a kiss, and turned back to Grandma, eager to get into their day.

So, I am finding my balance.  Finals only happens two weeks a year.  Summer is full of down time.  I think I'll only be working three days a week this summer for four hours a day.  (My wallet just said "ouch")  And next year I'll probably cut back one day.  But the work is alive and breathing.  I am already thinking of other ways to expand and grow, to contribute to my company and reach out to more students.  My boss recently asked me to attend a meeting to represent our company with him at a local high school.

And my kid?  Monday night, after three days away from her mama, she woke up, shortly after midnight, sobbing.  I went to her room, picked her up out of her crib, and held her against my body.  She sniffled, sucked on her pacifier, placed her head against my chest, ear to my heartbeat, one hand up around my neck, snuggled into my arms and lap, and fell asleep.  I rocked there for a while, thinking about my life, my choices, loving that I would not be leaving her again the next morning.  Nobody else in her life but Mama is Mama.  I am a superhero at home, too.

We have spent our mornings this week just enjoying our reunion, playing, spending time with friends, getting back into our routine.  She kissed me goodbye when I left each afternoon, and welcomed me for another day of our fast paced fun and fundamentals each morning.

But this last week was a good reminder to me that there is a limit.  That when the balance tips toward work and away from my home life, there are consequences, and my daughter feels them more intensely, more acutely, than anyone else.  The reminder is a good one, and it is essential.  Because I would be one to throw myself into work, pushing myself to do more, achieve more, learn more, give more.  And I would kill myself to maintain the level of engagement I have with my kid, off to the park, to dance class, home to color, to read, to snuggle.  To be a better mom, an active parent.

So I will continue to walk the tightrope of balance, tipping often, surely, but righting myself just as often, hopefully, because I pay attention to the signs, and I listen to the reminders, whether they be the gentle cries of my baby, tears wet on my chest, or the call of my students from their desks, minds bludgeoned to disinterest with a History that textbooks and public education have found a way, remarkably, to make boring.  I will push forward and continue the fight.  For both sides.  For both good fights.

That's what superheroes do, right?

Yes I Am Charlie Hebdo. Stop Trying to Convince Me That I Am Not.

When I first heard about the massacre in France at the offices of French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, it registered in my head as yet another bombing in Europe, and I thanked my lucky stars, yet again, that the United States is an ocean away from the random, regular terrorist attacks that occur in the eastern hemisphere. 
Then I read the details of the story.  A terrorist organization, swearing fealty to Yemeni arm of Al-Qaeda, specifically targeted the journalists at Charlie Hebdo because the magazine had published cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad and other cartoon images that were apparently insulting to him. 
I saw the "I Am Charlie Hebdo" and "Je Suis Charlie Hebdo" announcements scroll up my Facebook news feed and on my Instagram feed. 
Yes, I thought, I too am Charlie Hebdo.
I shared the meme on my wall in both English and French out of support for the families of the victims, out of a belief in free speech, out of an unequivocal distaste for religion in general and an outright abhorrence of the extremes of religion in totality.
But, the next day, I saw another post on my news feed.  It read, "I Am Not Charlie Hebdo." The article was written by David Brooks, someone I respect, and I thought, "Oh, great.  I posted too soon.  He's going to make a point that for some reason I should not in fact be claiming alliance with the magazine." 
Indeed, he makes some good points.  The magazine publishes articles and illustrations that can be considered highly offensive.  And it is true that most of us do not engage in intentionally offensive humor.  But Brooks goes on to argue that of course we should not change the law and restrict free speech.  Of course we should not ban offensive language or publications.  Of course.  But, he says, he is not Charlie Hebdo, and neither are we.
Well, I disagree.  No, I do not go out of my way to offend people.  But I do say things quite often that offend people.  Sure, it is the truth, but, yes, my foot is a regular fixture in my mouth.  I would never draw a cartoon that caricatures the Pope having anal sex with the Prophet Muhammad.  I can barely draw a tree. 
It's true.
But I do ridicule religion on a regular basis, pointing out inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and downright absurdities found within both the literature and the practice of major religions of the world. 
Yes, ridicule.  I think it is ridiculous that God would care at all about whether homosexuals marry.  I think it is ridiculous that God would prohibit the consumption of pork.  I think it is hypocritical for men to aim for several female virgin lovers upon death (and in life, in fact), but a woman should be stoned for showing her hair.  Because hair is a symbol of sex.  It is hypocritical to uphold marriage as an equal partnership but prohibit nuns from holding the highest offices.
I understand that my opinions are offensive to some.  But if we shy away from offending people with our beliefs, while those very people are not only not concerned with others being offended by theirs, but in addition aim to push their beliefs on others, how do we change minds?  How do we change the conversation?  How do we move forward?
It is pushy people who will not shut up who change the world.  We simply cannot stop, anxiety ridden, over every single person, or group of people that might be offended by our ideas.  We must exchange ideas in a free society in order to learn and grow.  And it is the people who push the envelope, the ones who go right to the edge, doing things we would never dream of doing, who make this space safe for us.  I am not interested in deliberately offending anyone, but the people who do remind us that we can push just a little bit further, two steps closer to the line, to express ourselves.  Because they will always be the avant-garde, way ahead of us, taking the hits and drawing first blood.
As Charlie Hebdo prepares to release its new cover, predictably offensive to Islam, we are now scared for the magazine again.  We must worry that new shootings will take place, that more will be killed, that the extremists will be enraged and retaliate with a sentence of death.
A sentence of death.
For a cartoon.
For a remark.
For a belief.
Do I think that all Muslims are represented by these attackers?  Of course not.  I similarly do not think that all Christians supported Timothy McVeigh.
What I do think is that we should all identify with victims of extremism.  In whatever form. 
Not just empathize. 
Identify. 
This time it was Charlie Hebdo.
20 years ago it was award winning author Salman Rushdie.
Charlie Hebdo was not targeted because the magazine was highly offensive. 
It targeted because it was merely offensive. 
As I can be at times.
As we all can be.

Oui, je suis Charlie Hebdo.  Ne me dites pas que je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo.