“It's a very, very, very exhausting profession (….) Now that I'm tenured and have been doing it longer, I'm not staying after for huge amounts of time. And just accepting—If things aren't totally in order tomorrow, that's just how it is.”
I KNOW THAT EVERY YEAR IS DIFFERENT
“At this point I know that every year is different. Some years are gonna be really, really, really crazy-hard and some years are going to be a little bit of a break. So I try to enjoy the years that are a break as much as I possibly can (…) I try to strengthen my care routines during the years whenever the job feels more manageable.”
“I try to strengthen myself during the years whenever there is more time and flexibility and I find that the energy I bring is contagious. So if I can be as present as possible and as positive as possible with the students and the adults I work with, that makes everything go more smoothly because I do work with more adults and more students than I guess anybody else in that grade level team, right?”
COUNSELING
“I guess I view it as a personal challenge, too, and I do go to counseling. I do meet with a counselor and I have consistently since I started. I actually just saw the note on the wall for the employee assistance program when I was [at my previous school]—the hardest six months of my life—and I called, and our insurance fully covers counseling. So that helps, too. I talk through care routines with my counselor (…) Just knowing that there's somebody who's going to ask me how I'm doing with maintaining those care routines is helpful.”
HAVING SUPPORTIVE PEOPLE
"The times whenever it works out that my partner has extra time and energy to cook, then my partner can be supportive. If we're both stressed out and doing too much, then that's harder. That's a lot harder."
"And friends—especially teacher friends."
“Some people just have their nuclear family. And that seems like it would be really hard. I think it would be hard if you were caring for an infant. And especially partner families where both people are teachers.”