Being a mother while juggling a career as a teacher seems like a lot. Mothers who teach balance raising their own children and being a positive influence in the lives of their students. However, I believe that teaching is one of the greatest professions in the world. Someone I greatly admire once said, “As a teacher, you create a world of your own inside the classroom. Your students can be campers, superheroes, detectives, explorers, authors, scientists, readers, architects, engineers, mathematicians, space explorers, microbiologists, anything you can dream or imagine.”
There are many amazing benefits and aspects to being a teacher and a mother. Jennifer Mergens, a teacher from Sandy, Utah has been teaching for over 23 years and has been in the classroom long enough to know that being a mom and a teacher can lead to great results. She shared some of the benefits of being a mother in education.
1. Knowledge - Mothers who teach have the ability to teach and mentor their own children as they learn in school. Teachers know how to set a homework time at home and how to best utilize that time to help their children learn. Whether it is math, reading, science, or book reports, they are the expert for their children.
2. Schedule - Most days off for students are days off for teachers. Mothers and their children can spend time together in the Summer, over Christmas and Spring breaks, and, for the most part, share the same working hours during the day.
3. School - Teachers can take their children to school where they teach. This gives mothers the chance to volunteer in their child's classroom, know his or her teachers on a different level, and see more of what goes on in a child's day.
Mary Graff, a teacher from Rainier, Oregon shared her sweet experience with having a daughter attend the same school that she taught in.
“When my daughter, Jessica, was in third grade, I had the wonderful opportunity of teaching her reading class which was about an hour or a bit more each school day. I loved watching her progress as a reader! I noticed more being in the classroom than I would have seen just by reading with her at home. It was a blessing to know each of her friends. She was attending a very small rural school at that time so her reading class was quite small - about 18 students. I loved the children she went to school with! I saw more of them in the classroom than I would see in a visit or chaperoning a field trip. I knew how hard they worked, how they interacted as classmates, how they could laugh so easily and if their demeanor was consistent with all life events.”
After being able to have a conversation with these two amazing teachers and mothers, I realized that there are going to be hardships in any career, but the benefits far outweigh the challenges to mother in education. You never stop being a teacher, and you never stop being a mother.