In the first hour of junior high, I’m not allowed to actually sit with my son. He makes a beeline to his desk, where he immediately starts talking to a girl next to him, leaving me to fend for my own. I’m not surprised. It’s not that he’s girl crazy—as far as I know—it’s just that he hasn’t cultivated the art of being a gentleman. If, for example, I’m hefting five grocery sacks from the house to the car, he will not leap up to open the door. “A little help here!” I have to shout. Most of the time, no one comes running. As for swinging doors swinging into my face, there have been too many to count. Admittedly, there was a time in my life when I insisted on opening my own doors. But that was a long time ago, back when I was a feminist college student. In college, everything seemed so clear cut. I could put oil in my old clunker car, I could bring home the bacon (though I was a vegetarian at the time, but I could at least bring it home. I just wouldn’t eat it), and never let any man forget that he was a man—a chauvinist oinker, to be precise, one who would not be allowed to open any doors for me.
I was so taken in my personal movement for Susan’s Liberation that I actually performed “I Am a Rock” for my French 101 class. “Je suis un rocher,” I declared, my voice heavy with conviction. The other students stared, their faces impassive, almost bored.
But I ignored them, channeling all of my feminist angst into the performance. Plus, it was a large part of my grade. So I continued. “Je suis une ile,” I said defiantly. I’m not sure, but I might have even raised my fist to the ceiling when I recited this bit about being an island. I was trying to declare a loner’s manifesto. But what it really sounded like was “I am a roach. I am going to be ill.”
Simon and Garfunkel’s song made me think I really could hide out in my room, “safe within my womb.” But it turns out that saying these things to boys doesn’t make them like you, which is what every girl wants, even if she won't admit it. It scares them. And being stuck on an island gets old after awhile. It’s like living on Alcatraz. You can see people having fun through a little window in your cell, but they’re so far away, they can’t hear you yelling, “A little help here!” As it happens, it wasn’t safe in my womb either. Just ask my son, that kid over there trying to ignore the fact that I’m shadowing him for the day.
While I sit lost in these memories, other parents wander in. We give each other what I call the “man wave,” which is a slight nod, a silent acknowledgment of the other’s presence, but not an invitation to chat. I note that I am carrying the biggest bag out of all the parents. One dad has nothing with him, and another mom has a sensible-sized purse that she holds in her lap. I, on the other hand, look like I'm lugging a small suitcase, an old habit from my diaper bag era. When I had babies, I carried extra diapers, wipies, granola bars, water bottles, an extra change of clothes for the inevitable baby poo blowout, and a book to read to the kids if we got stuck in line somewhere. Now I don’t need any of these things, but for some reason, I can't let go of my big bag.
But here’s a thought. Does this thing go back earlier? Does it hearken back to junior high, when I first noticed that the smart students carried huge backpacks stuffed with books and notebooks, scientific calculators, British novels, and musical instruments? Following suit, I insisted on using a big bag, too. I filled it with all sorts of junk: notebooks, paper, pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, textbooks, hairspray, brushes, face powder, supplies for Bellatrix encased in a drawstring bag. You name it, and most likely it was in my bag. It was my little house, packed and ready to go. Meanwhile, the slackers never brought anything to school except for a stubby pencil in their back pockets, and sometimes not even that. They were the ones who always asked, “Can I borrow some paper?” with raspy voices and smoker's breath. “And a pen,” they’d add. Or course, they always asked me because they knew I’d have those things. They could tell from the size of my bag.
My son has followed the tradition and now walks the halls with a backpack the size of a steamer trunk. And, true to my theory, he’s a good student. But here’s the thing: Today I am not a student. Yet I carry the bag of one. So I’m wondering, is this really the residue of mothering babies or do I want my son’s teachers to think I’m an intellectual? Am I hoping that they'll think I’ve come prepared to take notes on everything they say? That I am not a slacker? This strikes me as pathetic on both counts and I shove my bag under the desk to hide it.
Later, the teacher invites the parents to join a group discussion. We are invited to work with four other students on a poster. Then we are supposed to walk around the room and write comments on post-it notes that we stick to everyone’s posters. I enjoy writing anonymous comments on my post-its. It's almost like being in college again, a place where I flourished for many years. That's when something in my head starts to percolate, and I realize it's my brain. This is a hopeful thing. When I had kids, it was like my mind flew south. I feared it would never came back. But now I can just make out the flap of wings in the distant sky. I am mentally flagging down the flock now. “Over here!” I’m yelling. “I’m right here.” The mind is a wonderful thing, is it not? I think to myself. Just when you think your kids ate your brain, you find it on the front porch, waiting for you to come home. Maybe, I say to myself, I’ve moved out of the mom phase far enough to go back to the college student phase. I imagine myself sitting in the classroom, making brilliant comments. Or, here's another one--I'm teaching a class of young twenty-somethings, and they are awed by my intellect.
But then again, maybe not.
I’m standing by a poster, trying to compose something witty on my little paper when a kid approaches me. “What do I do when I run out of post-its?” he asks.
I don’t know what to say for a moment. The boy looks totally confused, like he has no idea where the post-its came from in the first place, even though his teacher handed him some only ten minutes earlier. He looks at me expectantly, as if he thinks I'll pull some post-its out of my pocket. I point to the teacher. “Ask her for more,” I tell him. He stands there, his forehead scrunched in thought. After a moment, he decides that I'm telling the truth and goes to his teacher.
Why did he ask me, I wonder? Then I figure it out. I am not a rock or an island. I am not a student or a teacher. I am a
mother. And that kid knew it
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