When people ask me why I stopped working at the kindergarten I feel they want me to answer with, “I was led,” or some such rhetoric. But it is hard to phrase the reason in such a nutshell. I will explain it thusly:
When I was single I had a wonderful bedspread and matching sheets and pillow cases. However, I could not bring myself to muss my bed by sleeping in it. I also had a covered pad and extra pillow which every evening I would slide from its hiding place under the lovely bed and sleep on the floor next to the bed. Upon awakening I’d simply slide the pad and pillow back under my bed and have a picture perfect room again.
I also could not abide to have a single glass dirty in the sink (or even in the dishwasher for that matter). As soon as I drank, I’d wash and return the glass to the correct shelf. I ate three meals a day out to minimize garbage and orders.
Upon having my firstborn, Jenny, I arranged all the delightful stuffed animals upon a shelf in the nursery – all sitting at cute angles and spaced just so.
This was great while she was a baby, but one day she wanted to play with one. Then another and another. Alas, they were no longer arranged properly but askew helter skelter on the carpet. This was very difficult. Nonetheless I faithfully retrieved them time and again to their proper places, proper angels and proper spaces.
Three years at kindergarten has shown me that kids are the opposite of order. There is constant goo, constant drippings, constant germs and continual noise (to say nothing of head lice and pin worms!)
Yet because of my dogged resolution to have my children attend a Christian school and my belief children should be home with moms summers and afternoons, I accepted the only job available to me to accomplish that goal.
It has been daily death.
I have aged and grown weak, developed early menopause and arthritis. I have become slump shouldered and can’t concentrate. My energy level is nil.
And mostly I have hated it.
Because God did not give me the gift of being a “kid person”. He gave me other gifts which have had to sit upon the shelves and mold since my time has been sapped by my job.
I have observed that people not using (or perhaps not discovering) their gifts are unhappy people. And the most successful people I know are those who are doing exactly what they love to do – what they are gifted at.
I love writing but I have children. In order to write I must have a meager income to cover tuition.
I have looked at the decision of writing versus kids in Christian school time and again and never once have I been able to put the writing first. But it is within me and it cries out to be heard relentlessly.
Each day upon pushing open the school door, I asked God for grace to stand that day at kindergarten and each day He gave me grace for that day.
However, one day three weeks before school was to be out my third year as aide, the grace did not come. I was so used to God’s faithfulness in this matter that I could almost physically feel its absence. However, we were busy and I pushed it quickly from my mind.
But that was short-lived. My task was to quickly cut out 400 red circles, 500 blue squares and 300 green triangles. So I sat at the large resource table, scissors in hand and began my mundane but typical chore.
Rhoda, another aide, was ordering materials for the next school year and in so doing, was flipping through a new catalog of kindergarten paraphernalia. Every few pages, she would stop, spot an exciting new product and the dialogue would go something like this:
Rhoda: “Oh, how cute. Paige, look how adorable these stencils are!”
Paige (the third aide): They are precious!”
A few pages were flipped.
Rhoda: “I have never seen such cute paint shirts! They are so sweet!”
Paige: “And look at those little darling straws! I could just order the whole book!”
Then in walked a child needing an eraser for her teacher. It was gotten for her and she left.
Paige: “She is the sweetest thing!”
Rhoda: “And did you see that hair bow? I love those things. She is a doll!”
Paige: “And her mother is an angel! She makes that child’s entire wardrobe. Precious!”
On and on it went. I kept hoping that Rhoda would turn the page and there would be a section of not adorable, precious or cute little things but a listing of dreadful, horrible and repulsive items. But it was not to be.
Next an adorable, cute and precious little boy came in and said something simply priceless and looked cuddly with huggable hair. It was sufficiently ooohed and ahhed over by the other two aides. I then hoped a filthy, stinky, bratty child would enter next; but no such luck. I was missing the grace rather badly.
I can distinctly remember thinking to myself: You know, all my life I’ve wondered why snipers did what they did – climbed to the top of a building and shot gobs of people they don’t even know. I’ve never understood that. But now I do. I understand them completely.
My cutting of those circles, squares and triangles became more and more ferocious.
That next day, again, I prayed and no grace. This happened four days in a row. During this time I was interceding with God about what was going on. I reminded Him unceasingly that I could not do this job without that daily dose of grace that He’d been so faithful about up till that point.
That’s when I saw what He was trying to tell me: Quit Already! So I did. I don’t think my supervisor exactly understood. I know she was surprised. So was I. I tried to explain about pushing open the door, the grace falling as if it were coming down from the door frame somehow. That it hadn’t been falling.
She wanted to know if I’d found another job. Of course not, I told her. She wanted to know if my (then) husband had gotten a big enough raise to cover the tuition. I wondered if she’d heard what I’d said about my inability to do this kind of work without special grace from on high.
So I elaborated: It’s like if I make my husband a bowl of cereal. I don’t bother asking for inordinate grace. I can pretty much handle that out of my own will power. I know, of course, just having an able body and food to prepare is God’s grace; but not the super abundant kind necessary to do a job totally opposite to one’s temperament and personality.
She wanted to know was I taking the kids out of the school. I decided to say, I was just led. Which I hope she did not take as, “I’m just not telling why I’m quitting.” I’d decided to just tell the truth. I should have spiced it up some. It just didn’t communicate.
She wanted to know how I’d be able to pay the tuition. I said, “I haven’t a clue. God will just have to come up with something. But it ain’t this. I’ve been willing to stay as long as He enabled me. He’s stopped enabling me. I can’t stay.”
Sometimes I feel like I’m living among foreigners. No one seems to speak my language. Everything is easily explained by others like: “Why’d you quit?” “I have another job offer.” Period. End of discussion. Me? I have to make a journal entry just to explain it to myself!
But those handful of friends who know me look at me with eyes of understanding and say, “Great! I’m excited about this.” And I know I’ve got a few still speaking in my native tongue as I sojourn this wild and crazy voyage called parenthood.