Today’s Parenting Chronicles…

“It takes a village to raise a child” is a proverb I take seriously. It’s one that initiated “all hands on deck” this week after virtual learning pushed Michai and me to our limits!

Monday started with me fussing about late work. It ended with us both in tears because of frustration, fatigue, pressure and questions about next steps. Michai is performing above average, but that’s not enough; especially when his performance is primarily because I’m following up with him daily. That’s not enough to get into college, and that’s not enough for scholarships when there is so much competition out here. We planned his schedule around learning in-person and with a “normal” daily routine, not around being at home on a laptop and rarely leaving the house.

Yes, we are introverts, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to leave the house. It means we want to leave the house and not be around a lot people…unmasked people.

Michai told me Monday his classes at Mt. Tabor, paired with Forsyth Tech, are overwhelming. They probably are overwhelming, but that’s because he thought he could do his typical procrastination routine, i.e. pull a couple of all nighters and catch up before the end of the quarter. He thought his friends would help keep him on task. What he has found is, the more he puts things off, the more work he ultimately has to complete. He learned his friends are also struggling, and the one he was to complete Forsyth Tech with never even started classes.

I told him giving up wasn’t an option, but I also struggled with how much I should push him before he breaks. I called his therapist last week, and we agreed on the importance of organization. When I reached out to him Monday, he asked, “What are y’all doing Friday, because I plan to come up there and lay eyes on him?” I first wondered whether he’s actually as young as he says he is, because that’s something my Grandma would say, then shock hit when I realized he was telling me he was coming from Charlotte to see about my baby.

In the interim, I made an effort to get Michai out of the house by making him drive. Now, I probably went too far with that one because I quickly learned I do NOT have the patience my Momma had with my sister and me, and I’m going to need new rims because he has torn up my current ones.

I was also trying to be proactive by reaching out to Michai’s guidance counselor and requesting we push Chemistry to his senior year because they probably won’t return to in-person learning next semester, and Chemistry ain’t a course meant to be learned online. After the counselor discovered (again) I wasn’t the type of parent he apparently was used to dealing with, he agreed to remove it. He called back to say, his supervisor said it had to remain because it is a prerequisite to AP Environmental Science (which isn’t to be learned online either). It didn’t end well…

Me: If that’s true, why didn’t Michai take Chemistry first, since he’s currently enrolled in AP Environmental Science? I’m not going through what I experienced this week, next semester, and if I have to choose between our mental health and Chemistry…Chemistry will lose each time.

Him: I’ll have my supervisor contact you.

As much as teachers and staff are requesting parents to be patient and flexible, I would think they would appreciate parents who are being proactive versus reactive. But anyway…

Michai was shocked about his therapist showing up this evening and his large pupils offered a side-eye I had never seen. I went to work and let them talk, and I learned how much the visit meant when I heard Michai’s voice on the phone asking if his therapist could take him to the 7-on-7? His voice was lighter and what I was used to hearing, versus what I had been hearing all week.

Mental health matters…BLACK mental health matters, and I am so grateful for the young Black therapist taking time, on a Friday night, to come lay eyes on my child.

We’ve lost some villagers along the way, but I hope Michai soon understands how special and important the old and new villagers are. Either way, we’ve not even made it out of the first quarter yet, so all hands must remain on deck for him and all our children. ‘Cause, in the words of David A. Arnold, this virtual learning “AIN’T FOR THE WEAK!”