An Open Letter to My Child's School Explaining Her Tardiness

Dear School Administrators,

Let me start by saying I appreciate your work.  I believe you have a job that is as difficult as it is important.  You are educating our future leaders on fewer and fewer resources each year.  When we send our two children to you each morning, I say a little prayer of gratitude and strength for you while I'm doing my victory dance for the eight joyful hours I get to spend at work uninterrupted by their needs.

That said, I was a little peeved to receive the letter yesterday about my daughter's "excessive tardies."

I realize that you must send a form letter out to all parents of students with excessive tardies as we also received one last year (ahem).  You asked for our response, so please allow me to share my thoughts:

1. Yes, these tardies have been under our supervision.  She is six, so she has not been driving herself to school late or sneaking out of the house to skip school.  My husband has been the one that has personally delivered her to the school office on these occasions.

2.  While you are highlighting the 5 days she was late, I would rather celebrate the 98 other days that she was on time.  Do you realize what a miraculous occurrence this is?  While the tone of the letter is punitive, I was pretty amazed the number was so low.  I'm giving my husband a big high five and myself a pat on the back for managing to get two strong-willed children awake, showered, dressed, fed, and to school for five months now. 

3.  You're threatening to get a social worker involved?  Great!  Please let her/him know to arrive at our house at 6:15am daily to wake up said child.  Please warn the social worker that alarm clocks, soothing music, gentle nudges, and cuddles are not effective at getting her alert.  Threats, rewards, bribes, earlier bedtimes, and engaging conversation are also no good.  Protective gear is suggested due to the threat of kicking, hitting, and scratching.  Prepare to engage in a battle of wills for at least half an hour, which will be followed by wrestling the child out of bed and getting her dressed without any cooperation from her.  Tears and screaming must be ignored in order to reach the bus stop by 7:07am so that she will not be tardy!

4.  Does she have a chronic medical condition that prevents her from attending school on a regular basis?  Hmm...well, not a diagnosed one, but see #3 and judge for yourself.  Note that we did not receive a similar letter regarding her brother.

5.  Please note the child DID attend school on these days.  It's not like the year (ahem, last year) when the kids missed 5 days for a Disney Cruise.  We do value their education.  I am the girl who had perfect attendance from kindergarten through high school graduation.  Yes, that was once a mark of pride for me, but now seems rather sad.

6.  I deal with enough guilt as a parent, woman, and person of a religious background.  Perhaps you should try talking with my daughter, who doesn't seem to have enough to motivate her into action.

Thank you for your concern.  We are with you.

Sincerely,

A parent who is doing the best she can.

Looking back

I was obviously way too serious and busy in my student years.

I've been experiencing bouts of nostalgia recently.  You can blame it on the "I'm so [insert name of hometown]" meme that's going around Facebook, or the fact that I bought a new bookshelf and spent some time flipping through old yearbooks before stashing them on the shelves.  There is my upcoming 15th homecoming at William and Mary this fall and my 20th high school reunion next year.  Even better, I had the time to hang out with some college and seminary friends over the weekend.  It's a gift to have those friendships that you can just fall back into even when years have passed.  We can laugh at the same jokes, and a certain song takes us back to the memories we shared together.

I'm not one of those people for whom high school was the best time of my life.  In spite of all the achievements displayed in the mementos pictured above and all of the friendly "let's keep in touch" messages penned in my yearbook, I often felt lonely and out of place.  I did have friends and keep in touch with some of them still, but I was more comfortable in my studies and solitude than in sharing my true self with others.  I found my role as an overachiever who was affirmed by striving for perfection (and feeling crushed by failure).

  

College was more of my element, when it was acceptable to enjoy classes and learning and when there was the ability to be whoever you wanted to be.  As I've gotten older, I remember it as a golden time with much freedom and little responsibility.  However, I think much of that perspective comes from looking back through the rosy glasses of nostalgia.  When I really think about it, I remember the stress of balancing my schedule and assignments, and feeling very much in over my head.  I don't remember the actual classes, though, or much of anything I learned (I was a biology major, but please don't ask me anything about anatomy, plants, or animals).  I do remember late night walks to Denny's, hanging out talking in a friend's room, and Sunday lunches after church.  I remember feeling like I had found my place.

Seminary was a time of finding community and discovering calling.  I met my husband and developed friendships that still carry me through the ups and downs of ministry and life.  I learned, too, that community is not always neat and easy, and love often means hard work.  I've been confronted time and time again in my frustrations, realizing that I am the one who needs to change.  I have learned over and over again the power of grace and forgiveness.

It has always been easier for me to look backward or forward instead of looking around me at where I currently am.  That is starting to change, however.  I think the difference is that as I near my 40s, I am finally growing comfortable with who I am.  Although my surroundings and situation may change, I have learned that I have the strength and the gifts to handle the uncertainties of life.  While my place may change, I have found myself.  

As I work with college students, I get the gift of sharing my story, and the honor of hearing theirs.  So many times I hear their regret that it isn't all they thought it would be, that they expected to have their lives "all figured out" by now.  I smile in empathy because the older I get, the more I learn that we are all still figuring it out.  We grab mementos from our experiences and try to piece together the memories to make up the Instagram roll of our lives.  It may look good in the pictures, but it's often incomplete.  We expect to feel as if we've "arrived", but the destination is still unknown.  We want to feel successful, but the definition of success keeps changing.  We expect to feel like an adult, but aging doesn't necessarily make us feel any more grown up.  The thing that often screws us up the most is the picture we have in our head of how it's supposed to be.  It takes courage to stop, see, and accept things as they truly are.  There is mess and there is beauty, and both are always in tension and transition.  But there are gifts in every stage as we seek to find our role, place, community, and sense of self.  Each success and each failure brings us closer as we seek out what draws us.  Every memory is just a page in the story of our life that continues to be written, and who knows what beauty is in store in the very next chapter?