Back to work

This blog platform’s AI is suggesting the following post topics for me:

• Navigating parenthood in the age of digital distractions

• Navigating parenting in the digital age

As though parenting is a ship I am steering, compass rose in hand, smartphones like icebergs trying to sink the Titanic. Wait, how did it know I am parenting?

Ta-da! I am parenting. I have not written here since October because I brought my son Honor home at the end of that month. He was born in September, and I met him when he was 5 weeks old. And he is an absolute delight. And today, February 7, 2025, is the first day I have sat down at my desk since I met him.

I went back to school at the beginning of last week. I was truly so nervous. I felt conflicted about what I was doing, unsure if it was fair to Honor who has moderate medical needs and perhaps really needed me to stay home even longer than the three months I had already taken. And I wasn’t even confident that I could do it even if I tried. My leave was longer than summer break—I’ve never been away from kids that long since I started teaching in 2018. Would my return be a huge fail for me, my son, and my students?

By the end of first period, I knew I had made the right choice to go back. I was very lucky it was a time in the year where I was launching a novel unit I taught four years previously and am very comfortable with, so it took no time for me to jump back into my lessons. I barely had to prepare. And the kids gave me such a warm welcome back. For the first two days, my lessons were interrupted every ten minutes by kids running in—sometimes literally running and screaming—to give me a hug. I was surrounded by love and support. And those who sat down with their classwork in front of them showed me that their brains were starved, and they were more than ready to do some reading and writing. Kids I’ve struggled for years to get them to write their name on a paper were actually on task and asking questions. It was beautiful, and I never felt more nestled into my exact right place in the world.

Now let me rant for a moment about my leave. First, if you couldn’t tell from my description above, I did not give birth to my son. I did not even know he existed until he was a month old. When I found out about him, I had six days to prepare. I disappeared from school quite suddenly, and I had very little time to figure out exactly how to take a leave of absence. I found out that because I didn’t give birth to Honor, the district would not grant me maternity leave. Now I swear that’s a change, because I looked up the policy years ago and I was sure adoption was treated the same as having biological kids. Our building representative confirmed for me that that used to be the case, but that policy was thrown out at the last contract negotiation. He had just had to take a leave of absence for the birth of his (biological) child, but since he had not been the one to give birth, he also did not qualify for regular paid parental leave. Gross, offensive, etc.

So it was suggested to me back in October that I could take adoption leave, which was unpaid, or illness in the family leave, at half pay. Certainly half was better than nothing, so I went that route. Then, when Honor had been discharged from the NICU for less than two weeks, we ended up back in the hospital. He got an infection that turned into sepsis, his lung collapsed, and he suffered cardiac arrest. He weighed only six pounds at the time. And by the grace of all miracles of the universe, not only did he survive, but he survived entirely unaffected in the long term by the time we were discharged from the hospital two weeks later. He does still take an inhaler twice a day, but he’ll be able to stop using it this spring. In any case, we were discharged from the hospital on November 24th, and I was meant to go back to work on December 4th. There was absolutely no way I could go.

Now it was on to FMLA, unpaid. I chose to go back after the second marking period was completely over so I wouldn’t have to handle grades. I could have waited a few more weeks until they kicked me off my health insurance, but I felt it would be best to start fresh with the kids at the beginning of a new marking period, and a few weeks wouldn’t make much difference for Honor. And besides, I knew that the longer I waited, the harder it would be to go back. It was time, I told myself like I believed it, even though I definitely did not. Luckily my fake-it-til-you-make-it attitude worked out well.

What I’m left with now, though, is 42.5 sick days that technically I am not allowed to use for Honor’s many follow up appointments with specialists, from pulmonology, to physical therapy, to neurology. I called the union to ask what I should do when I had to take my four-month-old to the doctor. They started to explain illness in the family days to me, but I cut them off. “I used up all of those,” I said. “All of them?” they asked, incredulous. “I didn’t give birth to him,” I said for the ten thousandth time since I met him. “Tell me what to do.” They launched into explaining FMLA, and I cut them off again. “He got sick. I did that too. So what do I do now.” Pause. Silence. “I’m not sure,” they said. “Well somebody has to take the baby to the doctor.” A sigh. “Yeah, I understand.” They had nothing. I thanked them for their time and hung up, wondering how the district could make it so hard to teach and be a parent at the same time, especially a parent of a kid with medical needs.