Being Mrs. Doubtfire

Today was the first day back to teaching, and it was a whirlwind of being properly dressed, arriving on time, giving information out (but not too much today), juggling a thousand questions that all seem to be asked at once, making a giant mess of papers on my desk and following little men around with a constant outpour of words flowing from my lips.

Things like:

“Do you have your agenda?”

“Are you reading?”

“WHAT are you READING?!”

“What did you do over break?”

“Can you please throw your lunch wrappers away before you switch classes? I am not yo maid”

“No parkour inside the classroom. Get up off the wall….”

  When I have my own kids, I will let them jump around like monkeys sometimes if they need to. Sometimes I let my school kids jump around like monkeys, but it has to be strictly monitored-there are many of them, after all. Could be dangerous.

There is only one of me, however, so I allow myself to jump around like a monkey sometimes.

No monkey jumping today though. It’s a brand new, shiny semester, which means it is time to start things off on the right foot. Time to lay down the law.

That being said, I get annoyed with myself being so rule-oriented at school because it’s not really a natural part of my personality.  

I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite movies,a cinematic epic of the highest achievement…

Mrs. Doubtfire.

 Please tell me you’ve seen it? If you haven’t, here’s the sum up.

Daniel Hillard loves his kids and just wants to play. However, after his childlike approach to parenthood (and marriage) finally goes too far, he becomes separated from his kids by an uncomfortable divorce. 

He must put on the wig, he must put on the dress. He must assume the  general -like persona of a no-nonsense British nanny. 

He must become “Mrs. Doubtfire,”  his own  kids’ new nanny. 

This allows Daniel to spend some much-needed time with his children. However, he knows that his previous methods of parenting won’t cut it by Mrs. Doubtfire standards,so he must learn how to properly look after his children (as well as himself!)

By the end of the film, Daniel has managed to reconcile both sides of himself, becoming at once the fun-loving dad as well as a pulled-together adult. 

I'm not sure how applicable this is to everyone working in a kid-focused workplace, but for me, here's how it applies.

Sometimes I feel an incredible urge to be a beginning-of-the-movie Daniel Hillard (though I rein it in usually).

 Most of the time, I find myself to be more like a Daniel Hillard watching from behind the sterner mask of Mrs. Doubtfire (but loose enough to dance like crazy with the vacuum-cleaner).

See here if you don't know what I mean by that:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuqYNx8zaXM

Sometimes I am the Daniel Hillard at the end of the movie, having found my inner child and sensible adult working together in perfect synchrony.  I guess that’s the goal of working with kids, that's what you really want.

Except for, you know, the weird cross-dressing, don’t-tell- your- kids- it’s –really- you- stuff. 

I think Robin Williams is really the only one who can pull that off without coming off as a complete creeper.

Yeah, Dane won't let me watch that movie any more times.