Hoping for a Little Chalkboard Inspiration During Covid

In the thick of covid, with my wife having gone back to work full-time, I found myself suddenly thrust into the position of “mom” on the home front. Only the home front was the front lines, and this little lamb didn’t know what the heck he was doing. I just knew I was probably doing it all wrong.

As the kids thumped around the house and lamented the loss of human contact during remote learning, I pondered how I could inject some positivity into their lives. Something mom-like. I knew I could never match their mother’s upbeat personality and enthusiasm for their schoolwork, but I needed to find some way to help motivate them. To give them the good feelings a kid gets when their mom is around. To let them know it’s all going to be ok. Looking deep inside myself for answers, I ultimately did what any good father would do; I turned to Amazon to fill their mother’s shoes.

It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for: one of those tiny little chalkboards where I could blow the kids’ minds with a daily inspirational quote. It was the most motherly thing I could think of. I had seen them in catalogues with pictures of smiling mothers and children, and something told me that this was the perfect solution. Who knows, I thought, it might even help me drop some dad wisdom, without every life lesson requiring a lengthy discussion. Something that could combine dad efficiency with motherly love sounded like a total win-win.

It was an inspired idea, that I’m sure of. Upon reflection though, my execution was not very mom-like. The quotes I chose were always tipped a little more towards bravado and can-do spirit, rather than hopefulness and positive vibes. I doubt Teddy Roosevelt was the muse anyone had in mind when they developed these cutesy little chalkboards, but whenever it was time to write a new quote, I often thought to myself: what would Teddy say? So naturally, my first quote came from him:

Great quote right? Makes you want to go out and kick some butt, right? Well, Teddy didn’t get as many fans as I expected. In fact, he got none. Something about his quotes only made the kids think life was going to be hard work, and they didn’t want to hear anything like that. But at the time, I thought maybe they weren’t inspired because the source wasn’t relevant enough. So my next piece of wisdom came from their great-grandfather, hoping that would connect:

This one didn’t go over well either. Hmm, I thought, maybe the orange is too severe and I’ve got to pretty these things up. Make them a little more kid-friendly. I also surmised that all of this work talk may have felt overwhelming. Perhaps what they need is a quote letting them know that they aren’t alone in their work. Yeah, that’ll cheer them up. I couldn’t find anything good online, so I decided to make one up:

This one missed the mark too. Instead of them seeing it as a message letting them know Dad is here to help, they saw it as proof that they will never accomplish everything they want to. No, no, no, that’s not what it says! It doesn’t say that at all! It says I’m here to help! I’M HELPING DAMNIT! Down but not out, I decided to go in a completely different direction, hoping a little ambiguity would make them ponder their existence.

The most common reaction to this one was: “what the heck are you talking about Dad?” It was becoming clear that I was terrible at this. My attempts to be a cute mom, filling her kids up with hope and love, were dead on arrival. After a few weeks of failed attempts to inspire greatness in my children, my daughters decided to take over the chalkboard, informing me that a little rebranding was in order. Now my job was to act as scribe, writing down their quotes, then turning the board over to them to dress it up:

Evidently I needed to keep things a little more light and pithy. Soon I wasn’t even allowed to scribe anymore, and my daughters took over the chalkboard operation completely. At thirteen and eight, they were out-mothering me in leaps and bounds, cleaning up where I was going wrong. Within a week I had lost all input into the process. A couple weeks later the thirteen-year-old gave up on it too, and the board fell into the hands of my youngest children. Excited by their newfound power, they eagerly shared all of the wisdom they had acquired over the years:

Alas, my attempts to inspire my children ended in the proverbial toilet. Or maybe not. Perhaps I was overthinking it. Maybe the kids didn’t need to be inspired. Maybe they didn’t need anything too deep. Maybe they just needed to know that nothing matters as long as we’ve got each other. And if life seems really complicated and stressful, just keep it simple and you’ll feel a lot happier. Eat. Sleep. Poop. Repeat. Wise words kids. Wise words. We didn’t erase this message for weeks.