When you signed up to be a teacher, you wanted to make a difference. You loved the aha moments when your students finally “got” the concept. You cherished their wisdom when you taught about prejudice and they couldn’t comprehend why the color of someone’s skin mattered.

And then you had your own baby. You snuggled your baby, whispered “Mommy loves you,” and pulled away from day care a sobbing mess, feeling guilty for leaving and then guilty again for being unable to fully show up for your students with your heart shattered in a zillion pieces.

But somehow you pieced your heart together and you showed up anyway. Because you viewed your class as others’ sons and daughters. You had never-ending amounts of patience and encouragement. You worked in your small group corner to make sure even the strugglers understood because you desperately wanted no child left behind.

When your students went to music, you responded to emails, graded papers, planned, and then planned more. Maybe you checked on your baby, but maybe you didn’t because it was too hard, and you learned to compartmentalize.

At the end of the day, you felt beat up and bogged down, but somehow you mustered up energy for your baby, whom you hugged tightly when reunited. Then bath and story time plus the nightly magic light show. You made it to the best part of your day, earning every bit of these moments.

And then just when you think you’ve got the whole teacher-mom thing down, COVID-19 hits.

And now, after a year of remote or hybrid learning, everyone is back in school. You signed up to be a teacher, but you became a soldier armed with hand sanitizer and a mask. All day you remind your students, who must be seated in rows three feet apart, to keep their face covering on because your main job is keeping them safe, and because you’re terrified of bringing sickness home.

The teacher in you cares about their learning, but the mom in you cares about them. And it’s too much.

You want the pressure from administration to stop. They forget that times still aren’t normal and expect Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) scores to increase, without acknowledging while after learning at home for a year, students don’t remember how to behave and are academically two years behind.

I feel you. I hear you.

Being a teacher mom was always hard, but teacher momming during a pandemic is unbearable.

You worry you’re not doing enough for your students and also that you’re failing your own kids. And when you’re really drowning, you consider a mental health break, but then you reconsider, because substitute plans mean more work.

And so you press forward. Because you are strong. And because this year is making you stronger. And you remind yourself what you told your students on the first day of school:

“Just because things are this way now doesn’t mean they will be forever. We must accept what we cannot change and go with the flow.”

Then you remind yourself that people are only given as much as they can handle, and while teacher momming will never be easy, it will seem easier after having done it through the worst of times.

Jill Litwin is the author of the blog “Mommy On” and has been published in “Her View from Home” and “Milk Drunk.”