I’m sure that there are millions of small revelations that new parents experience. Minor annoyances or obstacles that no one mentioned in their homespun wisdom, or PhD riddled books, or their holistic blogs.

One of the correlations in teaching is lice. When you’re interviewing, observing, practice teaching, etc. no one once mentions lice. They never tell you how often you’ll have to check for it, how much work you’ll need to put into erradicating it, how many decisions you’ll have to make about proper lice procedure, about how to deal with the parent who doesn’t care so won’t do anything, or the sadness you feel when you have to say that one child can’t hug another because one has bugs and the other doesn’t (yet). Lice is such a common school-age problem that no one thinks to tell you that it will be a part of your future.

And it’s ok that way. You shouldn’t be informed of every eventuality in your life. It’s not that it spoils the surprise in life, but rather that it builds common sense. Common sense is the ability to differentiate between a problem and a tragedy and to respond according in the most straightforward and helpful manner.

Common sense is being aware of context.

Not all situations have equal potential for dire consequences, not all actions have equal moral weight, not all opinions have equal validity. And being able to tell the difference is what separates the adult from the child.

Of course, even an adult sometimes need another adult to pull them aside and say “By the way, you’re being bat-shit crazy about this, and it’s not that big a deal, so calm the fuck down.” I need that a lot.

But I feel a sense of pride when I can accept a situation for what it is and work through it without throwing a fit. Lice is an annoyance. A time-consuming, expensive, exhausting annoyance, but an annoyance none the less.

I spent almost 3 hours this morning nit-picking students. I had to spend almost 50 dollars on supplies. By the time it was finished it was lunchtime and I was totally wrecked. I had been so concentrated on such a detailed task for so long that there was no way I could think anymore. The afternoon was a giant waste; we did the bare minimum of work possible.

And that’s just the way it goes sometimes. You can’t prepare for every single thing that could happen in a day. If I had my way no kid would ever get lice, and I wouldn’t have to give up a huge deal of teaching time to sifting through hair. Be that as it may, I’m grateful for a chance to solve something new (to me) and to be on the other side of something I used to fear with the knowledge that it isn’t as bad as I thought.

It is a relief to learn a small lesson in a safe way. Doesn’t happen like that for me too often.

(2 Years, 5 Months, and 20 Days Sober)