Bring-your-parents-to-class Day: Mom

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The last time I remember my parents being in my classroom was when they dressed up as clowns in my...2nd grade? 1st Grade?...classroom. They were great. The class played a game, racing to make mummies by wrapping each other in toilet paper. We bobbed for apples. We had treats and milk.  I smiled a lot.  So did everyone else.

Over thirty years later, I invited my parents to my classroom again.  They were great.

I was totally confident in my parents to pull off a spontaneous invite. My father was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years.  My mother was married to a pastor for 33 years.  I'm not sure which calling demands more resourcefulness, resilience or improvisation.

When they settled into comfortable chairs in front of 40 students, they sure seemed at ease.  The students didn't know what to make of it, but that's because they're students.

As soon as my mother began answering the first question, kids were hooked.  She doesn't recognize this power in herself, but the way my mom smiles at people when she addresses them, eyes full of kindness and hospitality, makes them believe they are loved and valued: safe, comfortable, inspired. As my student Mary Thao said, "She must be the best grandma and mom!" Yeah, Mary. She is.

But it is the genuine delight in my mother that inspires others. I'm not sure if she felt it or if it was just there for others to see, but there is sincerity beyond measure. And if there is something students pick up on, it's whether a person is sincere or fake.  And I think kids yearn for sincerity in our world of Snaps, Tweets, tailored advertisements and Fake Plastic Trees (but that's another blog post).

Anyway, she told a lot of stories: about wearing granary sack dresses, about being a cheerleader in love with the high school quarterback, about being a pastor's wife. She could have told different stories. It wouldn't have mattered which stories she told, it's how she told them and, more importantly, why she told them.  She impacted students by telling them life is beautiful, even with the trials and tribulations. Life is beautiful because we have a choice to make it beautiful.

I told my mom afterward to never underestimate the power of showing up. When she shows up, the best parts of us show up, too. Our hopes and dreams.  Our curiosity and appreciation. Our aspirations for love, success, happiness, and meaning all show up, too.

So when she wondered later that night about whether the kids got anything from the experience, I thought, Yeah, Mom. They got everything.

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