On Boundaries

In my final year of teaching at my daughter's school, she ignored me. Or, it would be more clear to say, she insisted I ignore her.  She was in second grade, and starting to enter that time when everything a parent does embarrasses her.  Until second grade, I would join her for lunch in the cafeteria.  She would wave to me as her class went past my classroom on the way to art or gym class. She was proud that I was a teacher at her school.

But when she hit second grade, that time was over. 

“Mom! Don’t hug me!”

“Can I walk to class by myself?”

“Don’t talk to my teacher!”

“Can you go the other way?”

“Isn’t it time for you to go?”

I knew it would happen some day—that inevitable moment when she would draw a boundary around herself that I could not enter.  Nonetheless, I cried when it did, even though I knew her actions were healthy and right.  I knew it wasn’t a slam on me personally.  Rather, it was her showing she was her own person, as all her classmates were doing.  She was forming ties to her new tribe, beyond the family.  And that is vital to a child's development.  But having a parent as a teacher at your school can make it tougher.  I was always there, a constant source of possible embarrassment.   She had to be doubly vigilant. I was sad to be on the outside.

I did as she asked.  I stopped joining her for lunch unless invited.  I trusted her to walk from my classroom to hers on her own. I pretended I didn’t see her in her line of classmates as they snaked through the breezeway.  I stayed away from her teachers and let them be teachers of hers and not friends of mine.  I let her walk ten or so paces in front or behind me so it wouldn’t look as if we where together.  I let her have her space. 

That following summer, I received a job offer from a local college, and with her cheers and blessings, I took it.  “Go for it, Mom.”  The next year, she entered third grade no longer a faculty kid.  And though it was with some mixed feelings, she was overall thrilled with the change. 

The first day I dropped her off in the carpool line was a revelation.  Suddenly, she was like everyone else.  I drove up to her school, stopped, but didn’t park.  I didn’t even get out of the car.  She got out of the car on her own and walked to class, her shoulders back, head high.  And I picked her up the same way.  I stayed in the car.  She came to me.  I didn’t enter her now private social world.  I didn't mix with her tribe.  And she was happy.  And all of third grade, I let her hold that boundary firm. 

Eventually, I was rewarded.  At the end of the school year, she invited me to go on a field trip to Boone Hall Plantation as a chaperone.  Suddenly, I had become cool again, at least a little.  As a 19^th century southern literature scholar in another life, I had expertise she wanted me to show off.  And it was fun.  We observed a strict no hugging, no kissing rule, but outside of that, we walked through the former slave cabins side by side.  We watched a Gullah storyteller weave her magic with words.  We stood in awe together at the massive bookshelves in the plantation home’s library.  It was a good trip. 

I learned an important lesson. With time, she will come back to me, on her own terms.  If I had made a fuss about her need for separation and privacy or had tried to force her to interact with me, we might never have reached this point.  I would never have been invited to go on the field trip.  I have learned that I must wait for the invitation, and that I can trust that, eventually, it will come.