Moot Points

At school with mom

Curt Moll

University tends to be a great experience for most people. New friends are made, and parties are plenty on weekends. For me, university was a bit different. I wasn’t brimming with confidence, and I wasn’t studious. I didn’t enjoy going to parties or bars. I did, however, enjoy my time at university.

Most students who attend university say goodbye to their parents at the beginning of September and see them on and off during long weekends and Christmas holidays. I got to see my mother for an entire semester.

My mother was young when she had me and, as a result, she put her career plans on hold. My father completed his teaching degree while my mom dutifully stayed home and took care of me and my two sisters. My mom began teaching nursery school in the mid-1970s and took college night classes. A move to Alberta in the early 1980s saw her continue to teach nursery school and take more night classes.

After my sister and I graduated from high school, my mom returned to school to become a teacher. All the night classes she had taken over the last 15 years gave her the equivalent of two years of university. In 1991, she was accepted into the University of Lethbridge’s Faculty of Education—the same time I was—and she moved into university residence.

Now I had the pleasure of taking a course with my mother. It was a summer course in children’s drama. When we weren’t being dramatic, my mom was relaying to the class stories of my childhood and how the stories related to the topic being discussed.

It wasn’t that bad, however, for she had friends she hung out with who were more or less her age, and I had my circle of friends. She didn’t bug me about homework, and she didn’t (to my knowledge) share any childhood stories about me that related to that topic.

So when colleagues discover that I attended university with my mother and ask hesitantly what it was like, I reply that it wasn’t a big deal. The only regret I have is that we didn’t graduate together. My mother finished half a semester ahead of me and, at the young age of 42, graduated with a degree in education.

Curt Moll teaches middle school physical education and social studies at St. Mary’s School in Medicine Hat. His mother teaches Grade 5 at Bassano School in Bassano.