The anonymous pink sticky note read, “Please get childcare...Crying baby during meeting is unprofessional & distracting.”
At the time, I was a high school assistant principal - and a young mother to a three year old and a 1 year old. My admin staff and I were leading a professional development activity allowing our teachers to respond to several questions about how we could improve areas like student engagement, community involvement, and teacher empowerment. Staff were asked to anonymously write their answers on sticky notes and post them around the room. After everyone had a chance to write and put up their notes, we all silently walked around the room reading what had been written.
I’ll never forget how I felt when I saw this one. I’ll never forget feeling the stare of the teachers standing around me or the stinging sensation swelling behind my eyes or the way I kept clearing my throat to keep the tears from coming. The activity was meant to be about schoolwide improvement, but there was no doubt this pink sticky note was targeted at me.
I became an administrator just months after my first daughter was born. I was nervous to leave the classroom, but excited to join an administrative team that I believed in with a staff that I regarded as family. In our school, family has always come first. It wasn’t abnormal to have teachers’ children around, and I loved that! But when it came to me, I was wondering if the rules of the game had changed. I do have childcare. Bringing my children to work was not the norm, but on occasion, it was the only way I was able to make it work. I always felt it was better to stay at work with my babies than to leave. I was working so incredibly hard to balance my motherhood with my career, but that one little sticky note made me question it all. Who else on my staff felt this way? Was this job even worth the time away from my babies? And did she really cry that much?!
Whoever wrote that sticky note couldn’t have known about my mom guilt, or my parking lot tears, or my postpartum anxiety, or my daily battles to find balance between my children and my career. Whoever wrote that sticky note also couldn’t have known that those words would hang with me for months - years! - making me deeply and regularly question my ability to be a working mother.
After that staff meeting, many colleagues sent me texts or came to my office saying things like, “I hope you know we don’t all feel that way” or “Try not to let it bother you!” I’m so, so thankful for those people. Even my principal tried profusely to reassure me and remind me that we were built on a culture rooted in family and that she too had brought her own children with her at times. But for all the positive reinforcement I received, I couldn’t let the one negative comment go.
There were nearly 200 sticky notes posted around the room that day, but this is the one I keep in my desk drawer. Looking at it used to make me sad - or sometimes even mad. At times, I’d imagine confronting whoever wrote it with my motherhood manifesto. At other times, I’d just beg of myself to let it go. But I’m not going to. I have come to terms with the fact that under the surface, the root of this message is likely not even about me at all. So - I forgive whoever wrote the message, but I’m going to hang onto this sticky note forever.
The difference is this - I don’t hang onto this sticky note for myself anymore. My armor is a little bit thicker now. I’ve since brought a third daughter into this world and stepped into the acting principal role. I agreed to taking this position with the unapologetic caveat that my family comes first - with the promise that I’d continue to support the same for my colleagues whenever it was in my power to do so.
As I continue on my leadership journey, I will keep this sticky note. I will keep it to remember the leaders and other teachers who have lifted me up. I will keep it for the other new moms and dads on my staff. I will keep it as a reminder to support them, to check on them, to cover their class - or to let their babies scream their little heads off during a faculty meeting if need be. You are not distracting, I will tell them. You are not unprofessional, I will say. I will keep this sticky note in my top drawer as a reminder - of the values I believe in and of the grace I will always, always give.
