Sadness Surprised Me When My Kids Returned to a Five-Day School Week
By: Lou Avakian
Tags: Teenagers, Empty Nest Syndrome, Schools, Parenting, Pandemic

I have suspected, since the moment our kids were born, that parenthood causes insanity. Now I’m quite sure of it.

My heart mopes as if my sons were sailing away to distant shores on a years-long seafaring adventure.

To fight poisonous, fire-shooting dragons.

Who take a decade to hunt down.

For God’s sake, man! They are home by early afternoon!

So the kitchen and living room explode into life a few hours later than in the past nine months. What is the big deal?

I am hoping that a look back over the past nine months will reveal what it is that I fear I am losing.

Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

At first

Last March when the middle school shut down, I felt sorry for my boys. They are growing up with telecommuters so they were not new to the concept of remote working — they adjusted well enough. But they didn’t care for it.

They missed their friends. And, yes, they missed their teachers. Quite a bit!

And they were restless. My heart ached every time one of them asked me, “Mom, when are we going back to school?” and I could only explain the uncertainty of it all.

So our family, like most families, had to settle in to a new way of living, a new way of schooling. And my job, like the job of most women across America, was to make the new way a success.

My first reaction was to soothe the boys’ pain. Right?

I tutored. From the murder of Julius Caesar to the trip through geologic time. From ratios and proportions to The Outsiders. From conjunctive adverbs to Spanish subject pronouns. From ancient castle design to homemade fried rice. From pep talks to cookie breaks.

I baked. Pies, cakes, cookies, breads, muffins, cupcakes.

I played. Basketball, soccer, baseball, football.

I even learned how to play Fortnite and Rocket League. Just kidding! But I did learn how to play Animal Crossing.

Eventually, delirium replaced energy.

Said I to myself, as I looked to the ceiling in an exhausted stupor, deer in headlights, half-crooked stupid little smile, brick eyelids, just a moment before face-planting onto the floor, “Maybe I should … homeschool.”

Unicorns!

And then there were three

You know what came next. The regressing.

I cleaned. Dirty clothes on the floor, crusty dishes on the table, stuffed garbage bins not emptied, hoodies not hung up, empty toilet paper dispensers not refilled, sticky floors not mopped up, crumb-covered countertops not wiped down.

I put up with it for a while because they were both diligently focused on their studies — tests, projects, experiments. The teachers were getting the curriculum across, no doubt. So I justified my foolish enabling of my perfectly capable sons.

My damaging disservice continued until the coddling started impacting my husband:

From in front of the refrigerator with the door wide open, arms at his sides:

“Where’s the jeeellyee?”

From his chair, sipping coffee, fiddling on his phone, not looking up:

“Did you get the mail?”

From on the toilet down the hall, door open:

“Did you call Fox Pest Control?”

Via text, in the house:

“Did you call the glass company about the window?”

From the pillowy couch:

“Did you pick up more popcorn?”

From the middle of the room, standing still, talking to air:

“Where are the Bandaids?”

Again, from in front of the refrigerator, door wide open:

“Is it okay if I eat this chicken and rice?”

Is it okay??

Always when I am fresh out of patience I need it the most. I have to dig deeper and scrape harder along the bottom of the barrel for just one more fleck of it.

I needed to make changes, immediate changes.