It’s back-to-school time once again. I’m not quite sure how we got here, but my husband and I will send our oldest child off to middle school this year.
At the risk of sounding like a sappy old fogie, it really does seem like just yesterday that our daughter hopped out of the car in her braided pigtails, little Velcro sneakers and an apple-themed dress that she had happily allowed me to select for her.
I remember watching her walk into Alma Easom Elementary School with her princess lunchbox and school bag slung over her shoulders, thinking that they looked comically huge on her tiny frame, and wondering if I had done everything within my power to ready her for kindergarten.
Little did we know what that year would have in store for us: an unprecedented pandemic that would cause our county schools to close their doors to students in March and move to virtual learning for the remainder of the spring term.
And now, those Covid-era kindergartners are headed to 6th grade. Middle school.
While I think that my husband and I have done a great job of keeping the “middle school here we come” vibe in our household super positive and light-hearted for the sake of our daughter — who has yet to express any signs of trepidation over her foray into 6th grade — I secretly know that many of us who have already been there do not exactly recall our time in middle school with incredible fondness.
Yes, these “tween” and early-teen years that my daughter and her cohorts are currently living come with the excitement of new experiences like electives, first crushes and school sports team tryouts, but they can also be fraught with stereotypical middle school challenges including, but not limited to, tested friendships, an increasingly challenging workload, acne and orthodontia.
I look back on photos of myself from my own 6th-grade year at Hillcrest (now Max Abbott Middle School, to date myself) and am not sure whether to chuckle or cringe. It’s safe to say that if ever there was an “awkward stage,” this was it.
There is one picture of me in particular that my family, friends and myself included love to joke about. My best friend refers to it as “proof of your Benjamin Franklin glasses phase.”
It’s a candid photo that someone (probably one of my unconditionally proud parents) snapped as I, clad in my oversized “Panther Pride” Hillcrest Spirit Team uniform T-shirt, clapped my navy and white pompoms together during what I can only assume was a JV football game. My enormous and perfectly round gold-rimmed glasses, each frame at least the diameter of a can of Coke, are slipping down on my nose to reveal dark eyebrows that had yet to meet a pair of precision tweezers. My unfortunate bangs are pulled back, along with half of my short bob, with a hairclip in a way that gives the impression that I am rocking a pretty sweet mid-’90s mullet.
I have vivid memories of being teased on the playground by one particular boy about those glasses. Of being self-conscious because I was seemingly the only girl in my homeroom who had not yet been granted parental permission to shave her legs or highlight my hair. Of worrying that I would be relegated to the far corner of the lunchroom at a table all alone solely because I truly loved academics and didn’t possess a Motorola pager, a brand new pair of Airwalk sneakers, or wide-leg, name-brand JNCO jeans like my peers who reigned supreme over the social hierarchy at Hillcrest Middle School.
But, I also remember being shocked and ecstatic that this bookworm had scored a spot on the HMS Panther Spirit Team and, in spite of what that old photo may look like, feeling like a super-cool and confident, mature middle schooler shaking my pompoms in my sharp, new uniform.
I hope that the middle school years will be easy on the class of 2032. In fact, I hope they will be wonderful. After all, kids these days have legit skincare routines, inconspicuous clear braces, a plethora of stylish eyewear options and YouTube tutorials on how to properly style their bangs.
When I recently did one last back-to-school check-in with my daughter and asked if she had any big concerns about middle school, I braced myself for a deep mother-daughter discussion on bullying, body image or maybe academic burn-out.
My 11-year-old pondered my question thoughtfully, and replied with exactly one overarching worry, “Yeah, Mom. Actually, I do have a concern. That the boys will forget to wear deodorant.”
There you have it. Our kids will be just fine as long as they remember the two timeless guiding principles of surviving, even thriving, during their middle school years: be kind always and remember your deodorant.
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Back To School Issue” August 2025 e-edition here.