“When you’re a teacher, you get to look down on your students’...

“When you’re a teacher, you get to look down on your students’ lives from 5,000 feet. You’re allowed a certain detachment because your primary job is to encourage and inspire. You can easily tolerate your students making mistakes, or lacking direction, because you realize that kids learn through the tension of uncertainty. But when it’s your own kids, you don’t have that the benefit of that detachment. You’re in the trenches because you’re the one in charge of keeping them safe. My son is impulsive, and he just got a Great Dane mix even though he’s staying in a tiny college apartment. If I were his teacher, I could laugh at that and say: ‘It’s OK, you’re just being you!’ But as his parent, there’s a lot of pressure to say: ‘Stop being you. And do this.’”