May 10th, the second Sunday of the month, is Mother’s day, a day to show appreciation to mothers everywhere. Mother’s Day started in 1908 by a woman named Anna Jarvis. Jarvis wanted a way to celebrate her mother and the sacrifices and achievements she made so she held a church service and talked about her mother. It then became an official holiday in 1914, when Jarvis campaigned for an official holiday. Palisade High School has many mothers to thank and celebrate.
Nancy McFarlin, an ELA teacher at Palisade High School and a mother talks about what being a mother means to her. Mrs. McFarlin says, “It’s absolutely the biggest blessing I’ve ever had.” Liz Chaney, a math teacher at Palisade High School and mother, describes it as, “Being a mom is my whole life, it’s basically everything I care about, so it means a lot.” Mrs. Chaney mentions some of the traditions that make mothers day special to her, “My son learned a song in preschools, it’s called I love mama, and he sang it to me at a preschool concert kind of thing, and now I make him do it every year. My kids have to come in, in the morning and wake me up with that song even though he’s older now.” Mrs. McFarlin also brings up some traditions and presents she has enjoyed on mothers day saying, “My boys always get me a bunch of flowers to plant in my garden and then they make me homemade pasta.” When asked about how teaching has helped them parent and how parenting has helped with their jobs, Mrs. McFarlin responded, “They both help. You learn how to work with kids, no matter what age and you also learn so much about kids and how they act and react and also how you react as a parent or as a teacher.” Mrs. Chaney stated, “I think being a parent has helped me become way more patient as a teacher, but I think that being a teacher has helped me be a lot more understanding when my kids are struggling with school or have bad grades. Mrs. McFarlin also talks about how it was having her kids go to her school, saying, “Two of them were great and then 2 of them I just walked really fast past the principal’s office. But I also had them in class, which was wild. My second son, I taught him and his 30 closest friends. So we’d finish 8th period and they’d all come to our house.” Mrs. Chaney is looking forward to her kids coming to her school and states, “I love the idea of having them in the hallways and roasting them for being a nuisance and making them live through their mom being the math teacher at their school, I look forward to that a lot.” Both Mrs. Chaney and Mrs. McFarlin are proud mothers and proud teachers at Palisade High. Make sure to wish them happy Mother’s day in the halls and happy Mother’s day to any other Mother’s out there.
