Our parents are our role models, the ones we look up to and hope to be like one day. From infancy to teen years, one’s parents are always there for us through every up and every down.
When one gets to high school, the other role models are our teachers, the ones who challenge us daily with tests and homework. Our teachers make us better readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and many more. Being a teacher is hard work, and so is parenthood. But doing both at the same time, being a teacher and a parent, is all the more challenging
Teacher and parent Jennifer Dorn is an English teacher at Notre Dame Belmont and is a mother to junior Viper Allie Dorn. She has been in a teaching position for 32 years, and this is her first year at Notre Dame Belmont.
“I started teaching right out of college, I went and got my credential, and then I had children. I was fortunate to have a job share, so I was able to manage it all,” said Dorn.
Dorn has a daughter, Allie, at NDB. This is unique, not only because Dorn has a daughter at the same school she teaches at, but this is not the first time Dorn has been at the same school as her children.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been at the same school. When I transferred to St. Gregory’s six years ago, I brought my children with me,” shared Dorn.
Now, being a parent is a hard job. It forces one to put others before themselves, and it sometimes becomes one’s “job.”
“I think being a mom is probably the hardest job ever,” said Dorn.
Similar to being a parent, an educator has to care and devote time to make sure their students are taken care of. However, doing both at the same time places interesting and unique ideals on someone, and when someone teaches for an extensive amount of time, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish between one’s parental and teacher duties.
Educator Emily Mitchell was a first-grade teacher for 20 years and has transitioned to administration, all the while being a parent to two daughters. With teaching other people’s children for so many years, she found it hard to give so much energy to her students but also have enough energy to care for her own kids.
“I think what was really hard about being a teacher and a mom was that you were giving so much energy during the day to other people’s kids that you wanted to make sure that you had energy for your own kids,” shared Mitchell.
Mitchell taught first grade at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California. When her own children came to be that same age, it was difficult for Mitchell to teach full days to first graders and then come back to her own first grader.
“The hardest moment was when I taught the same
grade as my kids were,” emphasized Mitchell. “I was a first grade teacher teacher for 20 years…what I would do is I would drive home after work, after teaching a full day, and I would try to tell myself the people that I want to be the best for is my own kids, and I would try to take that time to recharge my battery so when I got home, I could be the best for [my kids].”
Taking time off for your kids is a nice thing to do that a mother looks forward to. However, when one is a teacher, it can be hard to do this. The teacher role sometimes unavoidably triumphs over the parental role.
“Once you’re a teacher, you really can’t take time off. You can’t volunteer in your kids classrooms, you can’t do all the things that people with flexible jobs can do. So in reality, when you’re a teacher, you really can’t spend time in your kids class,” shared Mitchell.
It can sometimes be hard to separate one’s teaching life from parental life, but the parents behind our teachers have adapted and learned how to do both at the same time.
