Hide and Seek

“Make meaningful connections.” It was repeatedly said during teacher ed at State. Professors taught useless education theories, most of which I’d already forgotten. It’d been four years since I last set foot on a college campus. What left an indelible mark on my consciousness was that miserable and trite piece of advice. I wished I’d never internalized it. But how? It was offered as the panacea for all pupil-related issues. Can’t get Johnny to dress out? No problem. “Have a one-on-one talk,” they’d said. Janie being defiant? That’s okay. “Design lessons based on student interests,” they’d harped.

When I came to Jefferson High in 2018, administrators and their lackeys—teacher leaders—said the same crap. I got it, I got it, I’d thought. They beat us over the head with it during Covid, wanting us to reach across our computers, and be extra caring. Fill the emptiness these kids felt with our own emotional energy. It left me spent, and completely zombified.

Baby Girl—what I call Keisha, my two-year-old—was born two months after the start of the pandemic. Man, was my wife, Tasha, scared. Our timing couldn’t have been any worse. Me? I was petrified. Yet, I couldn’t show it; had to stay strong for my baby and her momma. I was given two weeks of paid paternity leave. And I would’ve gone back to work at the end of this term, not knowing a goddamn thing about being a new father, feeling useless, but the district announced closures at every site.

With all of us in limbo, getting paid not to teach so as not to disadvantage students at home without devices, I thought I’d hit the parenting jackpot. Time. Precious, blessed, uncompromised time with my family. Just me and my girls. What I won instead was the male equivalent of postpartum, also known as Paternal Postnatal Depression (PPND). At the time, I had no idea what I was experiencing. Everything felt tiresome and uninteresting. Tasha breastfed Baby Girl and pumped. I burped her and helped change diapers. It was a summer of hundreds of moments of keeping a child clean, and alive. No sex. And that’s another factor that in retrospect, could’ve affected my mood.