This is not a COVID story.
It’s a Mother’s Day story.
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On a sunny Arlington day last month, I spent nearly four hours inside the spacious Arlington ISD’s Career and Technical Center during the Family Expo and Resource Fair. This annual gathering, put on by the school district and the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, gives families a glimpse into student-aid resources they might not know about.
I spent most of my time in a couple of adjoining rooms, where fathers, mothers, and gleefully curious kids concocted machines out of LEGOs.
On my way out, I ran into Tisha Montgomery, a mother of three whose kids are scattered enough age-wise to represent AISD elementary, junior high, and high schools.
Here’s what stopped me: I overheard Montgomery grumbling about Mother’s Day and how the chances of her kids even knowing it was Mother’s Day were, as she coined it, “dubious.”
Montgomery is a former English teacher, so I expected her to use “dubious” in casual conversation; what I didn’t get was the less-than-flattering adjectives she attached to her high schooler. Montgomery said Mother’s Day BC—before COVID—was better, partly because her kids relied on her husband to steer them in the right direction to select and buy a Mother’s Day gift. He even paid the cash to get them.
Now, she said, her kids have become so independent in their thinking that they refuse Dad’s advice and money and head off to Parks Mall on their own. Just drop us off, Dad.
Apparently, independent thinking isn’t synonymous with good gift-giving.
Montgomery said her high schooler bought her an ab roller (complete with knee pads) and bragged about how it was the best, most effective gadget around to get rid of, well, you know what.
Her daughter might have topped big brother with wrinkle cream. Two jars’ worth was put in a box and covered in H-a-p-p-y B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y wrapping paper.
Mom blamed it all on COVID, saying that doing school work from home with no one guiding them gave her kids unprecedented control and autonomy, that they could do things independently.
“On one hand, you want them to be independent,” Montgomery tells me. “On the other hand, what’s the downside of that independence?”
“Two jars’ worth of wrinkle cream?”
My light joke didn’t amuse her.
I am still trying to figure out this whole BC thing, so I asked Nicole Bridges, who teaches fifth-grade math and science. She was at the event with her daughter, Skylar.
“Yes, they consider themselves self-sufficient,” Bridges says of her students. “You offer help, and they say, ‘I can handle it. I can figure it out. I don’t need a teacher in class to help me with this.’
“Before COVID, it was more teacher-led. Now, it’s more student-led, and they want to express their feelings. I often hear, ‘Oh, I don’t like that.’ Their opinions are strong.”
Isn’t this good, I ask?
“It’s great,” Bridges says. “Until they need help, don’t ask and finish an assignment that’s completely wrong.”
As a teacher and mother, Bridges says moms have to deal with this newfound freedom at home. I didn’t ask her how well Skylar has done with Mother’s Day gifts—she was sitting right there and wasn’t wearing the customary teenage gear (headphones) —but I did ask Felicia Barr, mother of two, who laughed out loud before saying, “She got me pajamas, which is what she got me last year and the year before that. And it’s the same pajamas—just different colors.”
She agreed with the COVID aftermath, saying the autonomy of working alone has given her kids a false sense of I-Can-Do-This-By-Myself.
While it’s terrific that some COVID kids got a good taste of independent thinking, it doesn’t appear to have boded well for Mother’s Day gift-giving.
I used to tell my kids what their mom wanted most: one, a surprise, and two, something she wanted but not necessarily needed.
Needs are one click away on Amazon.
Ultimately, moms want to feel loved and appreciated on Their Day.
I don’t think pajamas fall in that category.
