My Day in 9th Grade

Indulge me just one more "my-kids-are-getting-older" post, and then I promise I'll get on to something else. Last week I went to my son’s 9^th grade back-to-school night. The parents follow their kid’s schedule in a much-condensed day, so that we went to eight classes in about an hour and a half. I got to start my “day” in a room full of books, the English room. Here I felt safe and at home. Though I could have stayed there all day and listened to the sweet young teacher talk about the value of printed (not digital) words, I didn’t get to stay. I had to uproot myself and move on to a combination talk by the PE and world history teachers. PE and world history? Together? Jarring, especially because they were in the cafeteria and none of these things seemed to go together, but OK.

Then we shuffled off to the speech and debate room, where I had to imagine standing up in front of a room full of judges and giving a speech. That made me slightly queasy. Not as queasy, however, as the next several classes. Honors biology. A room full of creepy, crawly critters and a teacher who promises this will be the biggest academic jump our kids will make. I like science in a practical sort of way. I’m grateful for things like gravity and oxygen and DNA and the universe. Studying science? Makes me queasy. So does Algebra II. The very nice young teacher explained with great enthusiasm that the class would be studying functions this year. To me, a function is a social event in which I get to dress up and get out of the house. Apparently it also has something to do with math, and he rattled off a number of these functions. I’m pretty sure I took Algebra II during the Reagan Administration, but he might as well have been speaking Greek.

And speaking of Greek, we also spent 10 very intense minutes in Braden’s Latin class. (Don’t even think of calling it a dead language.) The teacher, a red-faced middle-aged man seemingly fresh off the boat from Italy, had passion oozing from his ears and an accent so thick I could barely understand what all the passion was about. The whiteboard was covered with words—I think—that looked scary and intimidating to even me, a person who loves words more than chocolate. At one point the teacher started barking orders to his service dog, who only speaks Italian, and then he wouldn’t let us out of the class, even after the bell rang, until we could differentiate between a Latin subject and a direct object. 

My son goes to a very good school, and his teachers are fabulous. But I was still a little freaked out for him. He does this every day? He goes from conjugating Latin verbs to translating protein synthesis to working out some sort of function? Every day? Five days a week? I was exhausted and overwhelmed by 90 minutes. It made me glad I’m old. When we got home, I asked my husband if he’s relieved he doesn’t have to do that every day. Then I thought about what my husband does every day. Payroll. Taxes of all kinds. Hiring and firing employees. Litigious customers. High school probably sounds comforting to him.

I’m a mom with four busy kids who need food, rides, advice, and help memorizing poems. I work a little on the side, and I volunteer here and there. I’ve always got a load of laundry to fold or a grocery store run to make. But I’m convinced I’ve got the best, easiest job in the world. Please no one make me go back to high school. 

Blogger Potpourri

It's the August tornado again, when parents and kids and people who don't transition well are sucked up into a whirlwind of new schools, new schedules, new activities, new people, new everything. Every year I promise myself I'll do it better than I did the year before, and every year I find tears trickling randomly down my cheek at the oddest times. Last year I sent my last child to all-day school for the first time. This year's transition is sending my son to high school and my oldest daughter to junior high, which if you didn't know it, is entirely different than sending a son to junior high.

If I were to sit down and write something right now, the sappiness would either bore or embarrass you to tears. So I'll spare you that and instead link to a few other great sites that have challenged me in the past week.

Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt should be mandatory reading for every middle-class woman in America. God did not design us to be slaves to our discontent. Preach it, Glennon!

This next one, on courtship, is long and may have a narrow audience, but it rocked my world. These are the dating thoughts I've been having as long as I've been parenting, but they weren't nearly this well developed, researched, or articulated. Personally, I think this is a breath of fresh air in our tight, controlled evangelical circles, although I know others will disagree. Dating children are still down the road a bit for us, but I'm always pondering and refining my philosophies, just in case. Would love to interact with any of you who have thoughts on this.


And finally, in honor of a transition time of year, a time when God brings new people, and with them new challenges, into our lives, I share my favorite non-C.S. Lewis quote of all time:

"Every day I put love on the line. There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another. I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. And yet I decide every day, to set aside what I do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride." (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction)

My Day at the DMV

I am now the parent of a 15-year-old. If you polled parents of 15-year-olds about their greatest fear, I’m guessing “learner’s permit” would rank high on the list. But I think we’ve got it wrong. Our greatest fear should not be putting our child behind the wheel of a two-ton killing machine; it should be the process that starts it all—the trip to the DMV.

Braden and I made this trip on Tuesday. Adequately forewarned, we dragged in a large bag full of books, games, snacks, and gadgets. After waking up at an hour most teenagers don’t see during the summer, we arrived at the DMV a few minutes before 8 and took our place in a Disney-attraction-sized line.  By 8:14 we had secured a ticket from the unsmiling receptionist and snagged the last two available seats in the room. This was our first time to scope out the room: a sea of tattoos with pockets of crying babies and sleepy children—some teenagers—in jammies.

An intricate, computerized system called out numbers and flashed them on a screen. We were told to pay no attention to this system, which the staff had yet to figure out in the two years since its installation. During a brief orientation, we also learned that uniformed military personnel and the elderly would take precedence over the rest of us. While this was fine with me, I guessed the mother with three screaming toddlers was wishing she’d borrowed a military uniform or a grandmother.

Our ticket predicted a 12-minute wait. Encouraged, Braden and I didn’t even take out our books. The people-watching was superb and could easily fill 12 minutes of our time. Except 12 minutes came and went, followed by 12 more, and none of the people seemed to be moving or changing. We hunkered down with our books and waited for P707. Two hours later, our number came up.

The lady at the counter was nice but clearly distracted. As Braden rattled off the answers to the eye exam, she filled out paperwork for another person. She talked the women next to her through the computer process while occasionally tossing out questions that may or may not have been for Braden: Do you want to be a tissue donor? Have you surrendered your license in all other states? Did you try hitting the F-7 key? Have you been physically or mentally traumatized? She seemed pleased with our answers and thrust papers at me stating that I would take full financial responsibility for any harm caused by my teenage driver. I took a deep breath and signed. We paid our $14 and were told to wait for the next step.

Once you forfeit your chair at the DMV, it’s gone for good. People lined all the walls, the aisles, and the floors. We headed to a little open space in the back of the room but realized we’d have to listen carefully to the lady calling names in the front. It was at this point—standing at attention, no distractions, fully aware of our environment—that I began questioning the wisdom of giving driving privileges to just about anyone in the room. (I confess, I was feeling far more judgmental than missional on Tuesday.) Like the teenage boy with hair hanging four inches over his eyes and pants three inches under his underwear. Could he even see to take the eye test? Or the overly pierced, overly tattooed man with the deranged Snow White plastered over his left calf. Are we sure all that ink doesn’t cause some sort of mental impairment? And then there was the older teenager at the counter right next to us. After waiting two hours like us, he had flunked the test. Braden and I found it ironic that his shirt said, “Party like there’s no tomorrow.” I wonder if his mother felt like partying after her wasted morning.

Really, if you need a reminder that your teenager is awesome, that you wouldn’t trade him in on another model any day, visit the DMV. My 15-year-old wears a shirt that says, “I’m secretly correcting your grammar,” but he did ace the test. And he has nice, short, clean hair. He has no small children of his own, and he’d make a lovely tissue donor. He also makes clever, snarky comments with me about the other people at the DMV, which made the time—three hours and 22 minutes in total—go a whole lot faster.

I don’t know how he’ll be out on the road, but his propensity toward caution and good common sense makes me think I’d rather follow him on the streets of Colorado Springs than the rest of our new friends from the DMV.