Originally, it was going to be called the “7th Grade Commandments” (like the Ten Commandments), but since it was a collaborative effort requiring the mutual, but not mutually exclusive, commitment of both mother and daughter, we felt that “commitments” was a better word, in as much as it implies personal responsibility and ownership.  And so now we have it – a poster board adorned with reward stickers (Great job!, You Did It!, A+ Effort!) and a listing of our ‘commitments,’ or basic guidelines for surviving the 7th grade with dignity, sanity, and last but not least, good grades, preferably of the vowel-kind.   Our 7th Grade Commitments hang proudly over the desk in our home office, now designated as the quiet, uncluttered, dedicated space for homework recommended by teachers, school counselors, and zealous back to school experts.

How did we arrive at the idea of establishing our 7th Grade Commitments? Suffice it to say that last year was one that neither my daughter nor I wish to repeat.  I learned a lot in 6th grade (hers, not mine).  Number one among the many lessons learned last year was that there are times when our children need us to put aside the cloak of working motherhood and just be there, consistently, for our kids.  As working parents we do our best, which sometimes means cereal for dinner or store bought cupcakes for the bake sale, but there is one place where we cannot cut corners – our child’s education. When my daughter came home from her first week of middle school last year with self-confidence and assurances that she had navigated her new classes, school policies, and homework assignments with ease, I decided that maybe it was time to loosen the reigns.  I would stop micromanaging her nightly homework and ease up on checking her backpack for stray notices from teachers, etc.  Still, a part of me said, she's only 11 years old and it's 6th grade.  6th grade!  It was a constant battle over reading and homework.  Toward the end of the school year, my daughter asked why I couldn’t be like her friend’s mother, who was always at school, talking with teachers, getting involved.  “Because I have a full-time job that I love.  So-and-so’s Mommy doesn’t work, so of course, she has all that time to spend at school.”   Then I stopped to think about just how much I hadn’t contacted her teachers or been involved during the school year.  In fact, it made me realize how hands- off I had become about everything related to her school. 

We spent quite a bit of time over the summer talking about the past school year and how the next year would be different.  But how?  It was one thing to talk about it, but being the task oriented type that I am, I needed to know what we would do about it.  We needed to take action.  No more TV on school nights, I suggested.  (This had been a rule since 3rd grade that was not enforced consistently last year.)  My daughter suggested that I check in with her teachers once per month and stop using Facebook until she went to bed.  (Ouch!) We decided to put our ideas into writing, as a sort of contract, and post it where it would be readily visible throughout the school year.  I was so impressed with her willingness to make changes and to come to me to tell me what she wanted from me.  Then it hit me - despite her ranting to the contrary, she needed me. It brought to mind something that I had learned from my favorite parenting book, Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters, but had yet to understand – just as adolescents start to pull away from their parents and assert their independence, that’s when they need us the most.  The stages of child development are cyclical.  We have already experienced a similar time with our toddlers. Despite their tantrums and protests as they learn to do things on their own, toddlers need rules and boundaries in order to feel secure in the world.  And so it was with my daughter; she needed me to continue to establish and enforce rules and boundaries, especially when it came to school.  I had felt that being a working mother gave me permission to ease up on some things, but school wasn’t one of them.  Some lessons we learn the hard way.  Some things we read in books and they make sense intellectually, but they don’t sink in until we experience them first hand. 

Several years ago I determined that my philosophy on work-life balance was learning to say ‘no.’  It meant prioritizing what is important and necessary and joyful and productive, and often saying ‘no’ to everything else.  As working mothers, the more we have to juggle, the more we have to learn to say no.  Yet, as we strive for balance, it’s important to take time to re-evaluate priorities and demands that may change over time. It is my daughter who has taught me that work-life balance also means saying ‘yes.’  As for 7th grade, so far, so good…