I want to be there, and I can’t.

Grandparents’ day- or parent attendance at school for special events.

There are always 2 sides to this debate. There are families that don’t have grandparents still living. There are families where both parents work. There are single parent families. Families with multiple children at multiple locations that can not attend all the events. So what do we do? How do we manage the guilt? What do we do about the fear of our children not having what everyone else has?

Preparation and Recovery. How do we prepare them? This is not a one-time conversation as this will never be a one-time event. This is something children will be up against as soon as they enter into the world of sports and academics. It is our responsibility to prepare them for the times we can’t make it. There may not be anyone in the bleachers, not because we do not wholeheartedly want to be, but because we can not be. We prepare them that not everyone comes with the same set of circumstances and that is ok. This does not weaken our love, care, encouragement, support for them. Real life does not account for inconvenient timing of work meetings, school plays, sports schedules and sometimes despite our best efforts it doesn’t work out. This is not a slight to anyone. This is life. So what does that conversation look like and how do we trust they understand what we are ‘preparing’?

This is a conversation that happens many times over many years. Son or daughter, I want to be fair and know you trust what I tell you, so I want to take a moment and explain why I can not always attend the special activities you have planned. Remind them again later. Take the chance to step in for another child at these events, if their parents can’t attend. It takes a village and this is one of those examples. 

I remember my daughter had grandparents day at school. We knew it was coming. I had been preparing her that it was mostly likely no one would be able to attend. Her dad was ‘deploying’ the day before, her brother had a half day at a different school, I had a meeting at my job planned for weeks. We asked her grandfather in VA and he wasn’t able to attend. My own father wanted to try but we were also up against my again mothers dementia and timing to make the 2 hour drive. 

I prepared her as soon as I knew. I even tried to offer for her brother to go (he was a previous student at the school). Timing. In all its glory it turned out two days before grandparents day, she was chosen to be the accolade in the church service that morning. This is a rare opportunity for fourth graders. The emotional cyclone began. The fights, the tears. I tried to move my schedule for my own guilt; it just wasn’t going to happen. Parents of friends offered to let their grands accompany my daughter as well. What would have been a small thing turned into something huge. 

We sat down to talk. I had to evaluate if this was my control or something bigger for her. So once we sat the tears just kept falling. I gave her space to say all the things she needed to say she had clearly been trying to hold together. Her own fear of letting the school down if she didn’t carry the cross, having good attendance, being there for another friend whose grandparents also couldn’t attend. The reasons kept pouring out. 

I started laughing. She was in shock. I wasn’t laughing at her; I was laughing at myself. My own guilt had rewritten a fear in my mind. I didn’t want her to be the only one there without a grandparent or parent. I was worried she would feel left out, or feel less because we couldn’t be there.

She looked me in the eyes as her tears were drying and said “mom you have told me over and over you can’t be there, and I understand why. I am not upset because no one can come, I am upset because I still want to go and (see all the reasons above) be part of the day”. I was laughing because I HAD been preparing her. She all but threw the recovery piece in my face:) There was no huge recovery.

She was resilient to the idea no one was coming on grandparents’ day, and she would be ok. She was prepared and was not in shock, denial, or fear. She had taken my preparation on herself to keep her obligations to the school, to her friends and to herself. She was letting me know what she needed, and I wasn’t hearing what she was telling me.