Lunches, homework, and uniforms have evolved but still need a schedule
By George Valadie
Praying for Perspective—the back-to-school edition. Because can there be a family experience where we need it more?
In our diocese, as I write on this Sunday morning, teachers have been working a week already, and all the kids have been back for at least a day.
You know, those introductory get-your-feet-wet days, meet-your-teacher, catch-up-with-friends, stash-your-supplies, learn-how-to-work-your-locker, and those first-day-of-whatever-grade photos.
And more than a few tears when some walk away for that first time—some moms, I mean.
My Facebook is full of kids who look so crisp and clean, remarkably bright-eyed in spite of a summer of sleeping in, nothing but possibility and promise in their faces. No matter how many times they had to reshoot that darn “happy” photo.
The same scenario is unfolding at colleges, too, where our moms and dads are dropping off their freshmen and fixing up their dorm rooms for what will surely be the last time that space looks presentable enough for a photo.
San Diego State University posts a great message: “Attention freshmen who are moving in tomorrow: A little request … when your mom wants to unpack all of your clothes and make your bed—let her. When your dad wants to introduce himself to all the people on your floor—let him. When they want to take pictures of your every move this weekend—let them. If they embarrass you or act crazy—let them. As you start this new chapter of your life, remember, they are also starting a new chapter of theirs. And believe it or not, this is probably more difficult for them than it is for you. So let them treat you like a baby one last time.”
Kudos to them … and guilty as charged—we did all of that and more when it was our turn.
And I love that you don’t have to drop off at college to “feel all the feels,” as they say.
Similarly, I asked a dad of a high-school freshman girl how she had liked her first day. He said, “She loved it. Super excited. Handling the transition much better than her dad.”
On a different note, it was this same Sunday, five years ago, when my mom suffered an aneurysm that resulted in a massive stroke. She died two days later. We thought she’d live forever.
She’s buried in the local Catholic cemetery, next to my dad and beside his parents.
My mom was our world when we were growing up and going to school—me and my three sisters.
She was a working-outside-the-home mom when many of my friends’ mothers worked at home—at a time when “working at home” meant something far different.
Our family owned but one car, so it was often she who rode the bus to and from downtown with a walk home from the bus stop and family dinner to be cooked waiting for her at the end of each long day.
She arose early every school morning to fix breakfast for each of us—buttered toast and hot cocoa, made from cocoa, sugar, and heated-up milk (pre-microwave days).
At the same time, she was also cranking out four lunches, cheese or bologna or potted-meat sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, before “baggies” were a thing, all carried off in paper sacks with our initials on them. And a nickel for milk, I kid you not.
We kids were “crisp and clean,” too, but the preparation was a little different. Given that we, too, wore uniforms, our mom’s routine, though I don’t know where she found the time, included mountains of ironing: skirts, pants, and a dress shirt and three blouses for each of the week’s five school days, not to mention her own nurse’s uniforms.
No polos, no perma-press, no straight from the dryer to the hanger. Not much convenience at all.
The woman was a saint.
When I think of my mom now, I picture her grave, lying there under a big tree on the hillside. She comes to mind today for obvious reasons, but also because that nearby tree is not unlike the one that grew behind our church underneath which we school kids played at recess. It’s one of my favorite memories from my own grade-school days.
Both sad and understandable, progress and growth eventually required that tree be removed. It was the gigantic sort with its big old roots everywhere, some arching up out of the ground, high enough to be a resting stool during a game of chase, others giving shape to the perfect mini-stadium for the rounds and rounds of marbles we used to play.
Life is different now. And so are schools.
Progress is a good thing. There’s a parish life center where that tree was. And for moms there are microwaves and baggies, hot chocolate, and Lunchables.
By definition, progress requires all sorts of changes.
Our students and parents now live with laptops and e-mails and pre-paid cash on a lunch account. Drop-off and pickup procedures have replaced walking home or riding bikes. And volunteer training must precede a homeroom party of cookies and punch. Just to name a few.
But even with all the advancements in culture and convenience, our daughters (with children of their own) tell tales of home routines that seem to be as chaotic as ever. And they seem every bit as exhausted as I’m sure our mom was.
Multicolored calendars and phone apps seem to be a requirement families cannot live without. Practice and rehearsal schedules, dress clothes on Mass days, Accelerated Reader due dates.
It’s nuts! Yes, school life is nuts! But it’s a good nuts—most of the time.
If you’re a part of it—at any school and any age—may your year be filled with every bit of that “possibility and promise” you captured in the smile of that first-day photo.
Dear God—Help us be ever mindful that all we do in our schools has a higher purpose—an eternity with the simplest of goals—life with you. Amen.
George Valadie is a parishioner at St. Stephen Church in Chattanooga and author of the book “We Lost Our Fifth Fork … and other moments when we need some perspective.”