school education | Jo Taylor Blogs

Incredibly grateful. That’s the mood.

I was terrified to be a parent. I knew without a doubt I could love my daughter hard and give her my heart but I didn’t think I could have the energy to be present. I thought I might be one of those moms who are always laying down. Not because of depression or lack of desire but because I had suffered from constant chronic fatigue and endless migraines. You have to understand, I missed so much school in high school that every year I had to write my principal and the board a letter requesting not to make me repeat a grade and explaining the cause of my extensive absences, and I had to get all of my teachers to sign it with their stamp of approval. After I had Evelynn, I was subbing and couldn’t wake up to sub more than 3 days in a row without coming down with a migraine from exhaustion. I’d spend the next 36 hours or so sleeping. It was dreadful.

I worried endlessly about a career I could juggle with single parenthood. Until Evelynn, there was a reason I stuck with serving—it worked for me to sleep, I didn’t take the job home with me, it required little to no functioning. It wasn’t until we found out I had Celiac Disease and I learned how much working out daily helps that I improved and did basically a 180 with my health—I now average less than 6 hours of sleep most nights, little to no fatigue (unless obvious overexertion), and migraines minimized 95 percent I’d guess.

And then there’s the other part: I am adamant about believing I do NOT have it harder than any other parent, single or not. Some days it gets really difficult to believe but I refuse to go down that road. I am not special. I am not the only single parent. I am not the only parent. There are plenty of others in similar or way worse situations—let’s be real clear and honest about that fact. I have it pretty damn good.

Reality is it’s still frustrating when folks don’t get that single parenting as the sole parent is tough. No, I can’t drop things to go out. No, I don’t have “half the days off a month” to date. No, I don’t have someone else who can pick her up from school because she’s sick. No, I don’t have someone else who can get her around in the morning because I’m running late. Everything is on me—the school events and extracurriculars, the finances, the cleaning, the nurturing. I play best friend and parent. I play both parents.

I love her hard enough so she never doubts she is less for having only one parent routinely around.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Seriously, I always feel like I’ve suddenly lost a part of me on those weekends she goes to my parents without me. Might not be often but damn, shit hits hard. (I swear I’m not a helicopter parent.)

I am no supermom. I don’t mind if Evelynn thinks I am but I don’t want to be anybody’s goals simply because I might have it hard. I know I have it hard. You can respect me for it but it’s only my reality, not yours. Your reality is yours, and your only goal should be to make it work, make your dreams happen, make the best of your situation.

The difference between me and others, though, isn’t because of my single parent status, it’s because of my mindset. I refuse to settle. I refuse to give up.

Whether I had Evelynn or not, my reality would still be me pushing forward, working for more, consistently showing up for me.

I can account for every moment of my day. I act with intention. I make things happen for me and my daughter. I don’t believe in complaining about things we don’t have or our struggles when I can work at changing them. I have the power (98 percent of the time) to grow and make changes.

And then there’s the reality we can’t always control things. I shared my fear of parenting due to health issues and support—I wasn’t sure I could keep or find a job with my life. Single parenting is hard and you never feel so alone as a parent until you’re taking all the days off work for both your illnesses and your kids, even if it’s just the flu. You never feel so alone until you have to fit in the groceries, the bill paying, the dinner cooking, the workouts, the cleaning, the drop-offs and pickups, the extracurriculars, the bedtime stories and tuck-ins, the early morning wakeups and midnight calls. And then the actual work for an income. It’s stressful. There’s no one to fall back on. I have an extremely supportive family but my life is not their responsibility. I’m pretty adamant about that, too.

So why do I refuse to recognize myself as having it “harder” than other parents? Because their situation isn’t mine. I think parenting in general comes with some hiccups and difficulties. It’s a road only you can travel. Every child is different, every household is different. It’s the entire reason for the nature vs. nurture debate. We can’t depict how one’s upbringing effects one’s life. So how we can say single parents with 100% custody have it harder? I simply have different obstacles to overcome than others. We’re still all in the same battle of raising littles.

The benefits: I raise her. I make the decisions. I don’t have to consult with a partner currently. I have the freedom to raise her how I choose—there’s no room for varying upbringing beliefs that I have to take into consideration.

But I also own all the failures. And I’m good with that.

I have been profoundly blessed in finding two jobs over the last few years with leaders who support me. Who instead of immediately looking at a piece of paper and take me to the chopping block, will ask me what is going on and how can we make it work? What do I need from them to be successful and balance everything? Often times that has included taking odd hours or working from home. Sometimes, it’s just being given a little grace.

My daughter comes first with everything, the balancing act of recognizing when that means I show up for her versus when that means working towards building a life for us, is the tricky part. I’m still learning this balance. But I always tell her why and we communicate.

When she didn’t see me during the parade, her face was ashen white.

Thursday was Evelynn’s costume parade at her school. Of course, I didn’t find out about it until the day before. She had already scolded me once before for missing some activity in class in September where most of the parents had come to class to participate—it was a 1-on-1 volunteer. I didn’t feel the need to volunteer when they had said they had enough. Evelynn of course thought otherwise.

Evelynn didn’t see me during the parade but I saw her. She was ashen. She was so white in the face I couldn’t tell if she had been extremely upset and scared or if they had put makeup on her. She ran right by me—she hates being put on display in front of a large group of people she doesn’t know. Like every parent, sibling, grandparent, and faculty of the school. When I showed up to her class after to snag a photo and tell her hi/goodbye and grab a kiss, she IMMEDIATELY lit up. Instant color to her face. It was amazing—shocking and eye-opening, too.

She was thrilled I stopped in for a few minutes to say hi. check out those colorful cheeks! And yes, she wore last year’s costume so her Anna costume for trick or treating wouldn’t be worried…but we couldn’t find her Minnie ears so I improvised. #momwin

I didn’t stay for the Halloween party—balancing act, remember?—but she understood.

So Thankful. That is how I felt all of Thursday and since. That I was able to text and email my bosses late Wednesday night and request 2 hours off Thursday morning to see Evelynn’s parade.

We’re all balancing something. This happens to be mine—and I love mine despite all the struggles and unknowns.

“But Mom, I’m a little busy right now.” — Evelynn’s response to me wanting to take a pic of her folding laundry last night.

Well, this girl might not be starting kindergarten in the fall. I knew there was a 98% chance the evaluation wouldn’t go well, and I had already been tempted to keep her back in the Young 5’s because of age, size, speech, and attention span.

Newsflash: she’s 4. She’s young and curious and has a very active imagination.

She has an impeccable talent to keep herself occupied for hours in the car by simply playing pretend with her hands—no socks, no puppets, no dolls, no clothes, just her fingers and nothing more.

Here’s what the teacher saw:

A child who could not spell her own name.
A child who could not stay on task.
A child who talked too much.
A child who was more interested in drawing and color than picking out numbers and letters.

Here’s what the teacher didn’t see:

That “R” initial for her last name was because she loves her preschool/daycare teacher Ms. Julie Rozek and she will go around and tell people her last name is Rozek.
It was at the end of a long day. She is one of the most on task kids in her preschool class and is exemplified for her listening and behavior. By the time I pick her up each day, her “following” skills are typically done and she’s all about doing things her way.
She’s social. She will talk her ear off. Her telling you she loves your necklace and asking how your day was and telling you about her weekend coming up because she’s excited to go to grandma’s house and see Logan is who she is. You’re an adult. It’s a one-on-one time. She doesn’t see this as a test. She sees it as an opportunity to have a conversation.
She’s an artist. She’s creative. She has an overactive imagination. She doesn’t count or pick out letters because she doesn’t want to—not because she can’t. She thrives on knowing the why behind why she is being asked to do something.

Finally, her stubbornness to do her own thing is not a developmentally delayed dependent child—I assure you she has more independence than most kids. She walked into your classroom without my assistance or urgency. She drew two very well done people that were not stick figures and even let you keep the picture without a fight, using all the colors at her disposal because she’s a kid who sees life in color. You said they were about her age level—that’s because of her great interest in coloring—but her inability to stop or to draw the items in your order of need made her lack discipline.

She does things on her terms. That doesn’t mean she’s developmentally delayed, it means she’s the boss of her own life.

She is not a child who does something simply because you tell her to. She does bend at your will.

Honey, she’s the strongest, independent child I’ve ever met.

Can we go back to the fact this is a 4-year-old doing an assessment at 4pm for less than 15 minutes?

Here’s what really annoyed me: she has a speech problem the teacher failed to inquire about. Evelynn’s teachers, first in Chelsea, then in Birmingham, and then now at her current preschool, have all made the same comments regarding her communication: she is very good and imaginative at creating ways to get her thoughts across.

I don’t doubt Evelynn should be in a Young 5’s class instead of Kindergarten next year. I was already on this fence. However, I’m disappointed in how they determined this recommendation. Children learn differently. They express themselves differently. They are not robots. This is not a time to give a child 7 tasks of yes/no. Children live in the grey area based entirely on their mood, especially come after 2pm—if they make it that long.

I’m disappointed that in less than 15 minutes this “expert” in young 5’s decided Evelynn didn’t know her numbers simply because she wouldn’t pick out a specific number on a list. Listen Linda, last night she helped me fold clothes and towels—not one of which I had to refold behind her, mind you—and when she spotted the number on the back of my soccer jersey, she asked me, “Why is there a 5 on your shirt?” I never encouraged the number recognition, she did it on her own. She’s curious, not a child.

When Evelynn was first placed in WISD and 3 teachers would come to the house to work with her on her speech—she was only 2 at the time—the eldest lady of the three, for all her expert years, didn’t understand Evelynn. She thought Evelynn didn’t understand her. They were playing on the floor. This lady repeatedly asked Evelynn to do a simple task with a baby doll and then proceeded to show her how to do it. When Evelynn continuously ignored her, the lady started to speak louder. Without even looking at the lady and breaking from working on her puzzle, Evelynn slammed the baby down on the floor to show the lady she didn’t want to do what she was asking. It wasn’t a mean slam, it was a “I’m not doing this” because the woman wouldn’t stop shoving the back at Evelynn—it was only a few inches off the ground. I had already told the lady to move on to a different task, Evelynn was uninterested—until Evelynn put that baby down, the lady didn’t believe me.

And you can bet your ass I told her, “I told you, that’s what she does.” It was only after Evelynn dismissed the doll that the woman tried a more appealing method.

I’m not an expert in child development, but I like to think I’m somewhat of an expert in my daughter. I watch her. I observe her. I know her. I can tell you when she’s fake coughing to avoid brushing her teeth. I can tell you how the first thing she does when she walks through the door is take her shoes and socks off and defuzz her toes and she can’t be expected to do anything else until she does that. I can tell you if we don’t sing “I love youuuuuuu” in a singsongy voice to each other as I tuck her into bed at night, she won’t go down. I can tell you how upset she will be with you if you unwrap her cheese or chocolate or open her juice or milk for her. I can tell you how her previous school told me she could count her numbers but she never would for me, she told me she couldn’t—I didn’t know she could until I caught her singing in the car. She’s sneaky like that. I can tell you she can’t leave her preschool/daycare without giving all her teachers and friends a hug; and if we miss anyone, she has to go back in. She’s an independent girl who needs routine and learns in tunes. More than anything, she’s her own person.

When I first walked out of that school after her evaluation, I felt like I failed as a parent. It doesn’t bother me that she might be going into Young 5’s—I want her to be in the best environment for her to succeed as a human—I felt like a failure because of how many times that teacher repeated “developmentally delayed”. I kept thinking about it. Kept watching Evelynn—I’m fully aware of her stubbornness and her attitude and the fact she can’t read—but I couldn’t see it. All I saw was a happy 4-year-old soon-to-be 5-year-old curious about life around her.

So here it is, I had misspoken. It’s not 2032. It’s hello class of 2033. Let’s just add on another year of Evelynn running the class because this kid is hellbent for election. Good luck teachers, she’s ready for you. I just hope you’re ready for her.

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Category Archives: school education

Balancing Act: Single Parenthood.

She dances to her own tune.