Laying Off, Playing Hooky, and A Day Without a Woman

I was a habitual truant as a child. My father enabled me in this pursuit. He was a barber who worked Saturdays, therefore, his other day off was Wednesday. On Wednesdays, he would invariably be engaged in some interesting pursuit, such as building a boat, going fishing, or just taking a long ramble down the Blue Ridge Parkway. My sister and I used to love to join him on these adventures, and every couple of weeks, we'd beg off from school. My mom didn't really put up a huge protest, and the old man would say something inviting like "y'all gonna lay off from school today?" as a joke, and we'd start begging to stay home...sometimes complaining of an ailment.

We also took vacations during the school year with little regard to the academic calendar. Once my mom took my sis and I for a week to visit family in West VA, in October. Our school system didn't get a fall break, either, it was just decided that it was a nice time to head over for a visit. They used to take us to Key West, as well, over Christmas break, usually missing a day or two on one end or another of the vacation.

The way my parents saw it, we were getting something valuable, family time was important, and as long as we read, made decent grades, and more or less behaved, the arrangement stood.

So I grew up appreciating the value of the mental health day, and continued to take time off for fun, household maintenance, and self-care, over the years, though various employments. I was not, and am not a member of the "Friday club" or the "Monday club;" that set of employees who are always out of school on a Friday or a Monday. I like a mid-week day off...

My work attendance these days is better, mostly because I'm trying to bank sick leave. I am relatively new in this district, and don't have a ton of sick leave accrued. I was wretchedly ill 2 years ago, and missed nearly 2 weeks of school, and used up most of what I had, so I'm trying hard not to squander it willy-nilly.

I am not calling in, nor taking off tomorrow, for the Women's Day Protest. I wish I could, but I work in a school that is notoriously short on subs. I have been out of the classroom for 6 weeks, testing children's English proficiency, and have just started teaching again, indeed, have just fallen in love with my work again (due no doubt to being away from my students for so long). Missing tomorrow would cause my other teachers hardship. If I had personal leave left, I'd use it. I used my last 2 personal days to go to Washington for the Women's March. As it is, I will don my pussyhat, go to work, spend no money, wear red, and make my daily 5 calls to my reps in the afternoon.

I teach the children of women who work too many hours for too little money. Their jobs are hard-won, and their existence here in Donald Trump's America is fraught with uncertainty. Some of my students tell of not seeing their mothers all week, because they are asleep when their moms come home from their housecleaning, restaurant, chicken plant processing jobs each evening. I don't know if they'll go in to work or not. On the Day Without An Immigrant, we had upwards of 200 students absent at our school. Parents did take off, and kept their kids home, some because they feared their families would be separated if ICE raided the neighborhood that day.

Protest is good. Resistance is important. Fight the Power.