By Caro Fritz
I was a teachers’ kid. I was part of the life most students don’t think about and are shocked by encountering at the grocery store or coffee shop.
I was a teachers’ kid. When my friends complained about my mom giving them homework, I would laugh and say, “Imagine having to live with her.”
I was a teachers’ kid. My dad would grade my papers more harshly than the others to “avoid bias.”
Throughout school, that felt like my defining characteristic. I was Mr. Fritz’s kid. Mrs. Fritz’s daughter. Sure, it could be awkward for angsty little pubescent Caro, but I mostly felt a strange sense of…pride.
My parents were born to teach. Watching them come alive in the classroom was a sight to behold. My mom commanded the room with her powerful “teacher voice,” tough enough to silence troublemakers with a look and funny enough to joke around with them afterwards. My dad loved class discussions, sitting in a circle on a backwards chair, stroking his beard, asking too many follow-up questions. We’d often get into debates that lasted the whole drive home. Because of my parents, I will never settle for less than a job I was made to do. They showed me that work isn’t just something you do to get by. It can be fulfilling, even fun.
There were also some downsides, of course. One time my dad wrote me up for being late, despite driving me in. (Which is pretty funny in retrospect). Sometimes my friends would get in trouble and tell me about it, like I could intervene—my parents would ground me!
I truly believe my parents have a calling for teaching, and I couldn’t picture them doing anything else. But even callings take their toll. Being around kids is exhausting, quickly depleting your work-sona of friendly professionalism. Being on your feet and talking constantly, all day every day, can be draining. Unlike most jobs, teachers have to have a vested interest in each one of their students. Their success in life partially depends on the work they do in school, and teachers are there to help them reach that success. Significant pressure comes along with those expectations from parents, administrators, and themselves.
I had two sets of parents. There was Mr. and Mrs. Fritz, my teachers, and Mom and Dad, my parents. Same make, different model. Mrs. Fritz would grade my essay, and Mom would make dinner. Mr. Fritz would be “on” all day, and Dad would hit the couch snoozing the second we got home.
I never begrudged my parents their fatigue (as an introvert, school also wore me out), but sometimes it felt like I had about 80 stepsiblings that my parents had partial custody over. Just like parents, teachers spread themselves very thin; they have so much to give and yet not enough because the job always demands more, more, more. Sometimes it felt like there wasn’t enough left over for their real children. Maybe other parents are like that; they spend so much time working to support their family that they get less time to actually be a family. (This is more a testament to the evils of the Industrial Revolution, but I digress).
I empathize with my teacher friends now because I had a front-row seat to that struggle. The job will eat you alive if you let it. It’s so easy to see teachers as just teachers—the people who give us homework and tell us to get off our phones. But they have lives and kids and bad days and good days and days where they just want to quit, like anyone else. Because of my parents, I have a deep, profound respect for both teachers and the humans behind them.
Caro Fritz is a bisexual baddie from Philly, USA. When she’s not writing, you can find her reading the latest Madeline Miller book or playing Stardew Valley.