2009-10-17 - 7:06 p.m.
Parental responsibility

Here's one of the tough things about being a teacher - you're going to be around kids who are going through really tough and messed up things. And you're just going to have to expect them to act like normal human beings even though their entire worlds are upside down.

What's sparked this happy observation from yours truly? It was probably the senior girl who got smacked in the head with a bat today at the softball fundraiser tournament. The poor little thing we sent to the hospital, bleeding and trying not to cry, just lost her mother - last week.

I think about all my other kids who are dealing with crazy, hard shit that I just have in class. There's the girl whose mother told her she was sending her back to her dad, across the country, because the mom just "didn't want to deal with her" anymore. The mom told the kid to tell all her teachers and then once all the teachers had been told, told the kid she just wanted to freak her out - she didn't have to move! What a fucking bitch!

There's the boy whose mother and father both abandoned him in middle school and have just left him to float from foster home to foster home. He's a complete dick and I don't blame him. He's also incredibly smart, but will never do anything with it because of the absolute shit life has handed him.

Then there's the boy that I love, but who acts out every day because his little sister is dying and he doesn't know how to deal with it.

I have a girl in creative writing whose mother killed herself when she was in 7th grade. Her older sister, whom I've also had in class, found their mother. They're left with their dad, who is a terrible person, and their younger brother, who is an absolute asshole because of his asshole dad and what happened with his mother.

There's the girl who's mother killed herself last year and she writes about it to me in her journal. I never know what to write back. What do you say to that kid? "I have no idea how your mother could do this to you"? That's not what she wants or needs to hear from a teacher she obviously trusts. I understand that her mother was mentally unstable and was obviously in a dark, dark place where the only out she could see what to kill herself. I just don't get how she could do that to her child - wasn't it enough that she had her daughter? Couldn't she hold on to living for her kid? If I can't even handle the fact that a mother would kill herself, how is that daughter supposed to make sense of it or live with it?

I just hate that awful, messed up things happen to my kids. Sometimes the things that happen are just awful things no one can control, like that girl from today's mom, or that one kid's little sister - illness and death happen. And other times, I just want to punch parents in the face. How can you mistreat your kids?

I know I am only 23 and have no children and am nowhere near close to having children. Most people would probably not think I would be qualified to offer parenting advice. I know parenthood is difficult - having kids is really hard, that's part of the reason I am not even thinking of having any right now. Parenthood requires a commitment that I am not ready to make. Because I respect that commitment, that responsibility, I am completely disgusted with quite a few of the parents at my school. It's rough being a teenager, even when your parents are doing everything right.

There's a definite lack of parental responsibility going on in my "community". I'm sick of it. I can't wait for parent/teacher conferences in a week and a half - I really hope I can contain myself when some dick parent is telling me I suck at my job because their poor kid is failing because they can't deal with their home life, let alone "Huck Finn" on top of that. I'll no doubt be amazed at the audacity of some parents.

All right, so I started writing because I was feeling pretty bad about the girl who lost her mom getting dinged in the head at the tournament. And it turned into a rant on the lack of parenting skills of some people. Argh. I just don't like it when my students have bad things happen to them.