Ninth Grade Happens
My kid’s in 9th grade and I feel like I’m being tested more than ever. What does being a good mother to this person I’ve birthed look like now, in this new chapter of high school and teen-dom? How do I keep going when so much of me, so often, wants to be done — send them to boarding school, send me to boarding school, just make it stop — the daily decisions and value judgments and endless logistics. Get some space to breathe.
I have an app that sends me notifications about every assignment and grade and tardy. Also the constant spew of school events, snack needs, schedule shifts, donation drives, and college prep info sessions.
When I was in 9th grade I learned to play pool at the billiard hall down the street from the high school that was effectively our home room. My friends and I would hang out there most days and then take public transportation home. My mother never knew until I told her years later.
She knew something was amiss though, when my end of year grades reflected my level of effort. The next year I got to go to a smaller private school where I thrived academically but had no friends. The subtext was that I was messed up, or that the big public school I was at was the problem, not the fact that I had made a habit of skipping school.
I know that my kid isn’t me, I’m not my mother, this school isn’t that one, conscious parenting, mindful mama-ing, all is an illusion anyway blah blah blah, and yet I’m struggling to find the path of kindness for my kid at this time in this context.
Teaching a teenager that they need to do things they don’t want to do and then holding the line on that seems to be the common wisdom of good parenting. Being the person who actually has to do that teaching, day after day, consistently, is a bummer. Especially when a big part of me wants to say — I DON’T KNOW! — I don’t know how to guarantee my kid a good life, a useful life, a life where they feel good about themselves and their contributions, a life where they know how to get from point A to point B, where they’re not just a screen, drug, stim junkie.
I try to support but not smother, to encourage but not push, to give space but be present. It feels like a time when I need to step up, mom up, dig deep for that extra loving hand of firmness, even though I’d rather go play billiards. On good days I remember to look at my child and myself with love eyes and realize we are both doing the best we can one day at a time and it’s good enough. I’m gonna keep going.
