By Default
I open the classroom door, kiss my youngest, and, seeing our teacher, throw out the usual “Dzień dobry.” Only as I descend the noisy stairs, carefully stepping around teenagers sitting here and there, do I catch myself thinking that today she's wearing leggings and a hoodie.
She is always smiling and consistently, even after two months, walks Platon down from the fourth to the first floor when his grandmother comes to pick him up.
Aisha — that’s our teacher’s name — writes me touching letters every week: “What else can we do to make Platon more comfortable?”. “Short of CPR,” I think to myself, but delicately respond that we have everything we need.
Sometimes, another cool stationery item tumbles out of my son’s school backpack, a gift from someone. He just waves it off with, “They gave it to me.”
My kids take this kind of treatment for granted. And although I find it incredibly hard to accept and constantly feel the urge to scold them, “You don’t appreciate what’s being done for you,” I am happy.
Because that’s exactly how it should be.
Recently, I was talking to a good friend of mine who, sensing danger, left for another country back in January. And she was right to do so. In our conversation, she mentioned that some of her friends criticized her, saying, “But you’re all alone, why did you even bother leaving?” To which she replied, surprised, “Why do I have to be saving someone to deserve safety? Why can’t I just want it for myself?”
That struck me because I’m just like those friends. Thanks to that conversation, I realized that I’ve also internalized the mindset of “everything for the kids,” which automatically wraps an old-fashioned scarf around my head and whispers, “You’re too old for this.”
I’ve spent my entire life dreaming that my children would grow up in an atmosphere of freedom and acceptance. I never dreamed that for myself.
I only knew what that meant in theory until now — when I’ve spent almost a year working at a global IT company with total D&I, zero hierarchy, and a culture of support, care, and inclusion. And despite still feeling uneasy when my manager says, “I know your workload. If you can’t keep up, let me help,” I understand that this is just normal.
Once, a hundred years ago, in winter, as a sixth-grader, I was sent home from class just because I came in wearing jeans. My mom had thoughtfully layered warm leggings underneath to protect me from the cold two-kilometer walk to school— because frostbite at best could lead to a bladder infection. And my mom, just like me now, didn’t want her kids getting sick — not out of pity, sarcasm here — but because staying home with a sick child for a week is a hassle.
A similar incident happened years later when, as a university instructor teaching English and French, I received a formal reprimand for conducting classes in an “inappropriate” outfit. Guess what it was? That’s right — jeans.
Now, every morning, I slowly walk through the school corridors, watching kids play ball during breaks, sitting on the floor in pajama pants and oversized sweaters, crawling out of classrooms on all fours, unkempt and untrimmed, while teachers walk past without batting an eye (thank goodness they don’t step over them); kids arriving at school on scooters, unicycles, and bicycles, leaving the parking lot and school fence overflowing with their vehicles; kids who roll into the building in wheelchairs, walk in on crutches, and play alongside everyone else — I walk every morning and am gradually coming to terms with the fact that this isn’t a random colorful computer game with my monochrome figure inserted into it. This is my real life now.
And yet, isn’t it something to be responsible for, too?
We’ve stopped locking our front door because the kids are constantly running out to play in the yard. For the first time, the boys started going to the store on their own — without knowing the language. They’re not scared at all. The atmosphere here is just like that, and the kids picked up on it immediately. You can cross the street not just while looking at your phone but practically with your eyes closed. In two months, I haven’t seen a single car accident in Warsaw or its suburbs.
Someone recently asked me if I thought the Poles might be tired of us. The question itself surprised me because such a thought had never even crossed my mind. No, they’re not tired. How can a nation get tired of itself? That’s just who they are. By default.
In the photo — a baseball cap I’ll be passing down as an heirloom.
May 6, 2022.