Regardless of school level and workload, on average a teacher can spend between 15 and up to 48 hours a week working before, during and after teaching.
If we take into account that the global estimate of 40% of teachers are also mothers, the perspective brings certain specific questions to light.
If being a mother is in itself a complex and demanding task, and also shares certain elements in common with the teaching profession such as the imparting of knowledge, the care and even the cultivation of certain values, or the very formation of individuals who are sensitive to the problems of the world, the challenge of being a mother and a teacher is presented as a greater one.
One where the vocation, the profession and the disposition are faced with ethical dilemmas, the optimal management of time and, yes... the love of a mother.
Just as not all mothers or children are the same or face the same context, having a mother who is dedicated to teaching can influence in different ways the formation of empathetic professionals and human beings, or with a certain propensity to knowledge and teaching.
Although this is not necessarily a rule.
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“Your mom does your homework for you”
One of the commonplaces about the children of female teachers is that they are often thought to have an academic and even cognitive advantage by having an educational expert at home.
Or in turn, that at home and in the professional field there is a demand for excellence, derived from a possible prestige or the pre-existing weight of the teaching figure.
For Ana María Palacios Boix, better known as Miss Ana, a private teacher with a career spanning more than 30 years and mother of two children, Alberto and María Fernanda, this is not true by default, but it could also be a matter of perception and nuances.
“Both of my children studied where I worked and my intention with this was for the high academic degree of the institution, and I wanted to give them that.
I didn't mess with their school situation, unless they summoned me or sent for me.
And yes, it is a great advantage to know the system but that does not mean that you give your children advantages, you only know where to help them and if they have a problem so that they can develop their own skills”, says Miss Ana, who considers that education is the most important thing in life, what brings a nation forward.
From the perspective of Miss Ana's son, Alberto, the benefits of having a teacher as a mother were balanced, and in case there was something uncomfortable or perceptibly adverse about that relationship, at the end of the day it was also part of a positive experience.
“Growing up with a teacher mom is having someone who is interested in your development, who has empathy by default, especially if that is their vocation.
That's what it's all about, because the profession is shaping people, and that entails significant responsibility, work and stress.
And that demands a remarkable emotional intelligence, which takes you beyond whether something is just right or wrong, you develop a very human sense of empathy and of putting yourself in the other's situation, of building and learning to appreciate others.
On the contrary, as the son of a teacher, I experienced that the bad decisions I made were louder, because they were at school and at home.
As it does not let you be that, it will always 'scratch' you, your teachers and your mother remind you;
the alerts are louder, let's say”, says Alberto.
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Love, knowledge and recognition
Despite the fact that being the son of a teacher or belonging to a lineage of academic excellence does not guarantee better school performance, what does usually exist is a much closer stimulation and awareness of the themes and dynamics of learning and knowledge.
For Israel Ramírez, singer-songwriter and son of Spanish teacher Jovita, as his mother is affectionately known both in the neighborhood where they live and in the two public elementary schools where his mother taught, his mother's influence was vital to understanding the inclinations, interests and passions of Israel today.
“My mother had a lot of influence on the things that I like now;
I liked books, music and dancing.
They were things that she fostered in me both as a mother and as a teacher.
Spelling was instilled in me since I was little, for example.
And another privilege I had was that I chose to study high school in a school where she taught, and in that school (República de Venezuela No. 86, in Iztapalapa) she was highly respected.
I had to meet many of her classmates, also meet her through those teachers.
A source of pride and setting a very high standard, too;
Where she worked, she always left a mark for being a proactive, demanding person and a very good teacher.
And everyone expected the same from me, but I was a bit lazy, really”, confesses Israel.
On the other hand, this supposed early "absorption" of referents, information and contrast of visions, often complex and different from the rest of the classmates, is not mandatory or conscious in all cases.
This is what Bartolomé Delmar Huerta confesses, a magician and business consultant, for whom the roles and dynamics between his teacher mother, Milagros Huerta, and him were perfectly delimited and constrained to the private vital space of each one.
“If I shared something with my mother it was for pleasure, and there were conversations, information, data, notes that had nothing to do with the task itself, but about things that she knew: politics, art, what studied and professed.
Those conversations, all that content did come to apply it in some school moments and it stopped my neck.
No one else had those references.
And there was a group of colleagues with whom I got closer with those references in common”, says Bartolomé.
Despite the natural stages of growth, where the children of teachers may feel strange or embarrassed because their mother belongs to the academic ecosystem to which they belong and with whom they share close friends-students, being a teacher is a respected and crucial job for training of individuals, not always remunerated in its fair measure, but in short, it has a lot in common with mother figures as they are the first to transmit information, knowledge or values, although, as Miss Ana points out, the latter begins in the home of each family.
“The teachers can be mother figures but in no way do we supplant the mothers.
The first thing is the house.
Sometimes teachers are required to transmit values.
We can help develop them, but it is something that must arise at home, undoubtedly”, points out this educational professional with more than 35 years of experience with different positions, between group teacher, coordinator and director at different levels.
Pride, affection and respect even go beyond the boundaries of the classroom and the home, to inhabit the daily life of a community that continues to see the teacher as an essential educational figure, despite the technological evolution or the new ways of acquiring knowledge, as pointed out by Miss Ana's son, Alberto: “The transfer of knowledge in focused and human terms is very important.
Yes, there will be better tools, but for me there always has to be the role of the teacher, because it is a vital reference of the human relationship, the one that is not limited to your family, nothing else, but a larger one that will help you grow in a healthy way. mutual.
They develop with you”, says Alberto.
Israel Ramírez also underlines the respect, affection and recognition over time, where others generate affective ties and human correspondence, thanks to the path carved out by his own mother who was a teacher to many.
“My mother was loved by the parents, because she worried about the children having a quality of life.
If they arrived mistreated or poorly fed, she spoke to their parents.
That human part outside the classroom seems important to me.
That commitment.
And another satisfaction is that in the neighborhood they recognize the teacher Jovita, they even give me discounts in the shops for being her son;
It's a matter of respect, too."
