Parent-Teacher Conferences and On Being a Professor Mom

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It’s hard for me to be a professor mom and a parent. Most of my life is spent teaching, reading about teaching, and writing about teaching. When those experiences intersect with my experiences as a mom, they are often tested in many ways. Nowhere does that become more clear than in parent teacher conferences.

And it’s hard enough having a son that I sometimes don’t understand (his idea of revision in a recent essay he wrote was to change the word “kill” to “slaughter”), but it’s even harder meeting teachers who may not share a similar teaching style to mine.

I would just like to say that I firmly believe that it’s important for teachers to develop their own styles and that’s a lesson I try to get my students to understand. But, sometimes I wonder if my thinking “I know what’s best for my son,” sometimes gets in the way. So, I don’t often go to parent teacher conferences and instead chose to let Victor handle dealing with Emery’s teachers—it’s better that way.

But I recently felt the need to meet with one of Emery’s teachers and was reminded how wonderful and lucky we are to have teachers who care about our children, and even though their approaches might not be our approaches, it’s important to trust them. I think the lesson I learned that when in doubt, communicate with your child’s teacher, even if it’s hard to suppress certain aspects of your identity.