“You are just like your mother.”
I cannot even estimate how many times I have heard that sentence in my life from all sorts of people. Grandparents, coaches, siblings, teachers, neighbors, friends and just about anyone who knows both my parents and me have said this statement to my face at some point. Most times people mean this reminder as a compliment, a couple times it has been spit at me as an insult, and, as I have gotten older, there seems to be a level of astonishment that comes with the observation that, yes, the genes are pretty strong in my family.
Don’t get me wrong, I never feel offended when I hear these words because I believe there are many attributes of my mother that I would love and hope to find in myself. However, when trying to figure out who you are and where you fit in the world, hearing that you are the carbon-copy of someone who already exists can be confusing. Especially when the more I try to be myself, the more I realize that I am just like her in many aspects. I am loud, I care about my family more than anything else, I am so suffocatingly Type-A, I arrive at least fifteen minutes early to everything, I love to dance, I am competitive and, above all else, I give my all in everything I do.
The similarity that has been most recently at the forefront of my mind is my choice in career: a high school teacher. Even though my mother teaches history and I will exclusively focus on English, the idea of pursuing a degree in education and dedicating my life to doing the same thing she has done for thirty years transported me right back to my middle school self that didn’t know who she was outside of her mother’s shadow.
Falling into this trap of “copying” my mother’s vocation has caused me to stay up late on many different occasions wondering if I really feel as strongly about education as I think I do. Am I just so used to the school environment because I grew up in an educator’s household? Do I have tunnel-vision when it comes to career options? Am I subconsciously fulfilling a prophecy that I have been trying to separate myself from for years? Do I even have a sense of individuality or am I just a conglomeration of the people I am surrounded by?
Yeesh.
As I have continued to take education classes and now am physically in the classroom teaching lessons and helping my own set of students, I have come to realize that I am not called to teaching because I am trying to fill my mother’s shoes that I have always felt were a little too big for me. I discovered I was called to teaching because my mother opened my eyes to that opportunity, just like how past teachers have inspired my love for the classroom and writing and past coaches have provided me with the chance to step into leadership positions that have shown me not only how much I love to help others grow and succeed, but how to do that kindly and effectively.
My mother has cracked a door for me that was blown wide open once I started taking my educational experiences into my own hands. It does not matter that she is a teacher, in fact, I am grateful to have her in my life so I can call her and talk to her about my days at school and she can actually relate to the stories I tell her. When the week is over and I tell her that my eyes hurt, she laughs and nods along because she has lived and breathed the fluorescent lights of her classroom for much longer than I have, but most of all, my mother reminds me that I can do this. When my lessons feel messy or my day was extra long, she is the only proof I need that because I am like her, I can do this, too.
So, yes, I am just like my mother. I am intelligent, hardworking and resilient. She serves as my reminder that I am stepping into my own and have the toolkit to succeed. I am forever thankful for the person that she is and the amazing qualities that she has passed down to me so that I can grow into the person I am supposed to be, but the older I become, the more I know that I have chosen the right path and will work every day to create my own future.