What learnings can kids get from our work life? My mum's example, a Latin teacher.

We seldom consider our parents' work struggles. Parents get relegated to their home role but their experience is crucial to shaping us as individuals in society and in our working life.

This year's mother's day fell on the day I graduated 15 years ago. It was a strange coincidence as I lost my mum 2 years ago and I know how important that graduation day was for her.

Why writing about it here? Because it made me reflect upon her example as a working woman. 

We tend to take for granted parents as working individuals, without thinking about their struggles in their careers, making life decisions about what to study, where to work, etc.

My mum was a Latin teacher in one of the best Lyceums in the centre of Rome. That was it. That's how I knew her and in my eyes, she had always been there.

I never thought she had had a working life before that. Struggles working in some of the most violent schools in Rome's outskirts where they would threaten her, they would steal the radio in her car and ask her to pay a ransom to have it back.

Why parents don't speak to kids about their work choices?

They tend to give their kids career advices, focusing on do's and don'ts instead of relating to a similar situation that happened to them at work. 

Parents tend to make kids not worry, hiding the pain like an umbrella in the rain.

My mum was born a twin in 1939. During WW2, age 5, one morning she could not stand on her legs. She had contracted polio. She would lose the use of one leg for all her life.

Fast forward, she graduates in Literature, she gets married, she has 2 kids and becomes a Latin and Literature teacher for all her life.

But what drove her to make those career choices?

She never told me or rather I never asked but a few years before passing, she left us a short bio called "my relationship with my handicap". 

There, I discovered things she had left unspoken. She first wanted to teach at University but then opted for high school. They had told her that she would never manage to have kids so she wanted to teach teenagers, her way to raise kids.

In fact, she always treated her students as she treated us. Strict and loving.

What have I learned from her actions?

to never be jealous or envious of others.

She wrote how tough it had been to grow up next to her "non-disabled" twin sister, seeing in a mirror how different her life could have been without her handicap. She got used to her different way of enjoying life, always with a smile on her face.

to never give up

She made her condition her strength. She wrote what a mentor her father (that I never met) had been, pushing her to be like the others and do everything she wanted to do. She took a driving licence to gain independence, she graduated, she raised a family, etc.

to go back on your feet after a fall

She broke her legs many times, every time going to physio and going back on her leg again. On one of those occasions, she was pregnant, expecting me. While falling to protect me in the womb, she broke her leg. She went through surgery with full anaesthesia and I didn't move for a few days afterwards. She thought to have lost me but there I kicked again. To honour her prayers, she called me Christian.

to fight the status quo

Despite being 41 years older than me, she always kept young, learning youngsters terms, being on social media. She taught me how to drive, explaining the use of the clutch without having ever used it. She made me try to smoke a cigarette in front of her to show me there was nothing cool about doing it if she knew about it. I never smoked again.

to never stop learning

After retiring she signed up to the 50+ University and learned English as well as how to use a computer. She loved her iPhones and FaceTime was the best invention to see her grandchild living abroad.

to be accountable, but not too strict

Many times I would ask her to help me with Latin homework. 

She would mostly say no. She would make me sweat hours on it.

When done, she would tell me a secret spot where she had hidden the translation she had done for me.

I remember being angry but now I understand her message: I will always have your back but you must show me you fight for it and that you learn from it.

One year, I got the highest marks in all subjects except in Latin. She didn't speak to me for a day. She was tough, when needed.

Parents try to protect you, fighting hard to remove the stones from your path. They often make you think they didn't have any bumps on their journey omitting the details of how tough it has been for them. 

As a recent father, I now think that it would be better to explain to my daughter how tough life can be and how to stand up again after a punch in the face, rather than making it look like I have never got punched.

In my mum's bio, I discovered things she had never told me. I think it was her way to take the stones off her shoe, to take her "invincible" mask off and show us that life can be tough and it is how you react to it that makes all the difference.