Teachers share many of their life with their students. Being an educator means that you spend the majority of your days with your students and that also means sharing some of the biggest moments of your life.
Some teachers start their careers young, and they have the opportunity to share marriage, children, and other life events while teaching a full class. Getting to celebrate these moments with students makes it extra special because many of them want to celebrate with their teacher, too.
Obviously, when we start growing a baby bump, it's pretty hard to hide from our students on an everyday basis. Sharing the good news with our students is something that all teachers look forward to. Being on the journey of pregnancy is exciting, but getting to share it with people we care about is equally exciting, too.
Mrs. Nancy Bullard is a K-5 teacher in North Carolina who shares a lot of her student's jokes and her teaching tips on Instagram and TikTok. Recently, she shared her pregnancy journey on her Instagram page, along with videos telling her students about her pregnancy and maternity leave.
While many companies do provide paid maternity leave, educators are given a substantial amount of time to stay home with their newborns. Returning to school is oftentimes up to them, and depending on the state, teachers can take time off with job security.
When she knew her maternity leave was coming closer, she decided that she had to inform her students about her maternity leave. She wanted to let them know that she would be leaving, but only for a short time and that she would be coming back.
Mrs. B explained to TODAY that she didn't want her kids to worry that she wouldn't return.
"I didn’t want them to get caught off guard when I stopped coming to school. Plus, I wanted to reassure them that my leave was temporary," she said.
The educator decided to use her coming baby as a few lessons for the day in her classroom. Some of the activities included parenting advice and even anecdotes about parenthood from the babes themselves.
In one hilarious video, the science teacher had her students try to "draw her baby" to the best of their ability. Clearly, these kids are not going to be in a museum anytime soon, but these drawings are absolutely amazing to look at.
Upon returning from her maternity leave, Mrs. B decided to tell her students all about her time off. As 2nd-graders would, they said they "missed" their teacher greatly, and—they had a ton of questions about her time off and her new baby, too.
Mrs. B introduced her son to the class by sharing a few photos of him on the projector board. She also shared some stories about her time with him while she was away on maternity leave. Many of the kids said that they were shocked—and wanted to ask a lot about baby Sam.
Some students had a lot of questions about the baby and where he sleeps and if he cries. Some asked what parenting a baby entails, like if Mrs. B would be teaching her baby how to walk. They also asked what he eats and if he sleeps with her or her husband.
Of course, no matter what, there is always that one student that asks "where do babies come from" when they are talking about babies and pregnancy. Luckily, Mrs. B is a science teacher and she is well equipped to deal with these kinds of questions!
