The Milestones of Motherhood
upon the end of my elementary school era
We all know there are milestones of motherhood. When your baby finally learns to sleep through the night. When they stop breastfeeding, or when you stop trying to breastfeed. When they learn to walk. When they give up their nap. The first overnight away from them. Getting rid of the stroller. Their first playdate where you leave. Their first sleepover.
The list goes on and on.
Well, I’m about to hit another one.
Today, I did my final school drop off.
Obviously my kids will continue to go to school. But my youngest is about to graduate elementary school. In our neighborhood, most kids walk or bike to the public middle school on their own. So this is the end of an era for me. Not just in rushing out the door to make it to school in time. But for so many things.
I’ve been at our elementary school for nine years, since her older sister (who will enter high school next year) was a kindergartener. She started August 16, 2016. Through those nine years I’ve attended countless parades and parties, socials and potlucks. I’ve fielded the endless requests for volunteers. Library volunteer. Class party volunteer. Field trip driver. Field trip chaperone. (In fact, my very first post on The Mother Lode was about saying No to the PTA as a feminist act, naming that sometimes that PTA can feel like more exploitation of women’s free labor).
When my first daughter was in elementary school I was eager to show up and do my part when I could, considering I still had a toddler at home and was working “part time.” But slowly all the volunteer requests got tiring.
The pandemic put a pause on all of that and then I noticed a real shift upon our return to school in less demands on the parents.
Towards the end of my time at the elementary school, I pretty much just ran the Scholastic Book Fair. That was my one volunteering job all school year, a slog of countless hours during a week in November that I felt excused my refusing all other requests.
The thing about elementary school, is you feel like you are always on campus. Not just for drop off but for pick up. And I have lamented that pick up time before in The Math of Motherhood: School Edition. This year pick up is at 2:55 each day, except for Wednesday when school gets out at 1:30. But for first through third graders, pick up is at 2:35. So if you are the lucky parent who has both a younger kid and an older kid, yes, you will need to hang around school for 20 minutes. But you shouldn’t let your younger kid play on the play structures! No, that would be distracting for the kids who are still in class! I’m not exactly sure what we are expected to do with our children who are grateful to be out of school but can’t actually leave the grounds until their older siblings are done.
Now that my youngest is a fifth grader, she walks home on her own on the days she doesn’t have a cello to cart back and forth. That means for three days each week, I don’t have to obsessively watch the clock to make sure my meetings don’t run over or my creative spurt doesn’t distract me from a prompt pick up.
Next year, I will not have to watch the clock at all. I will just wait for the sound of the door opening.
There is a small part of me that is sad about this ending. That my kids are growing up, becoming more independent, that I will no longer be so actively involved in their education with parent/teacher conferences and my constant presence on campus. But there is also a part of me that breathes a sigh of relief.
I’ve made it. Through the most challenging days, the most intensive caretaking years.
I know, I know, the parenting doesn’t get less when they get older. The bigger the kid, the bigger the problems, is the adage I’ve heard. So they need you just as much if not more. But cumulatively? In terms of hours spent watching and tending and holding and feeding and soothing? Much less. I see it already with my now 14-year old. She wants me in very small doses these days.
I will never know who I might have been if my kids had gone through the elementary years unscathed by the pandemic. But as I’ve mentioned (ad nauseum I feel), my kids were in third grade and kindergarten that fateful March 2020. They wouldn’t go back to full-time school for over a year. Even then, their precious faces were covered by masks for another year after that. Those years irreparably harmed all of us, but they most definitely changed me as a woman, wife and mother. I broke during that time. Sacrificed my career. Shattered my marriage. By the time the world got back to “normal,” nothing about my life would be the same.
Today we have two “promotions.” One kid is leaving elementary school and one leaving middle school. Our family is no longer intact. The kids live in two houses and dear God, we are still adjusting to that, some days better than others. My kids are not the only ones who have grown and changed during these nine years. I have morphed into the woman I was meant to be. Who is not a wife. But is most definitely still a mother,. A mother who is full of life, and joy, and love and excitement and is ready for what the next decade of motherhood looks like for her.
I’m moving on. I’ve made it. I feel like the one who is graduating this week.
So goodbye to parades, parties, playdates, parent/teacher conferences.
Goodbye to that dreaded 2:45 panic.
Goodbye to keeping track of spirit days and bring-a-stuffie-to-school days and popsicle welcomes!
Goodbye to the look on your child’s face when they see you waiting for them and can finally exhale in your arms after six hours apart.
Goodbye to 9:45 poetry celebrations and 1:30 music class demonstrations.
Goodbye to class parents and teacher gifts.
Goodbye to birthdays at Rock n Jump and being my child’s social coordinator.
Goodbye to quiet walks to school, and tender hugs goodbye.
Yes, part of me is sad those days are behind me. That soon, my eleven year old will also likely not want to hold my hand in public. May no longer want to snuggle before bed. May find me annoying and cringe and just so desperately out of touch (remember I have a fourteen year old, so I know what is coming!).
But I did my job well. My kids love me and trust me, and even that 14 year old recently sent me a video of her and her friends and her friend said: No, don’t tell your mom! And my daughter said: Oh girl, I tell my mom everything!
I am proud of the mother I have become. I am proud of who my daughters are becoming.
So today, I pat myself on the back. I celebrate myself, as no one else will do it. You did it, girl. It was brutal. It was sometimes your undoing. But that woman was meant to come undone. Now, you’re on the other side. You made it. You’re thriving.
On to what comes next.
P.S. Sending love to all those moms whose kids are graduating high school, a transition much more major than mine!
P.P.S. Are you glad to see some motherhood content back on The Mother Lode? I know it has morphed into reflections on marriage and divorce but I promise to keep coming back to the motherhood experience. And below, some of my favorite motherhood posts from the archives, ICYMI:
This resonated with me in so many ways, Cindy. The mixed feelings about saying goodbye to those tender, early years, but also the absolute joy and freedom of kids becoming independent and finding their way. I often marvel these days at how much I love being a parent to a 17 and 19 year old, and how I’m happier than ever being a mom now that the heavy lifting is behind me.
Us too at the end of June, although slightly different with primary school going a year longer. It's been complicated as you capture so well.