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Professor Gregory Edgeworth didn’t mind that he rarely got off days. He didn’t mind having to sit through trying to decipher students’ essays in their chicken scratch handwriting. He especially didn’t mind those select few students that came to see him during his office hours.
One thing he could not abide by, however, was a student whose baby was crying.
Now, not to misunderstand him: he thought it was wonderful when students brought their children with them. He was perfectly alright with a child who came to lectures because they didn’t have another place to go.
It was simply the noise.
He’d been a father for so long that the sound of a child crying immediately sent him to high alert. He couldn’t concentrate with the sound of a baby crying. It was grating, it was loud, it was upsetting, and he wanted to make sure that every student had an acceptable learning environment. Crying babies was not something that helped ease that along.
It wasn’t a problem he had often. Most classes, there were no students with children. He feared that was because they dropped out of school to be parents and abandoned their educational career, which, being a good choice for someone who plans it, can be devastating for a student who doesn’t plan for something like that.
He wanted to show that it was possible to be a single parent and to be in school, or to even be a parent with a loving partner and to be in school. It was very important to him.
That’s how this whole thing had started.
One of the quieter students in class, Jessie, had brought one of the quietest people to class, Daniela. Daniela was a beautiful baby, maybe five months old, who was usually quieter than most of his own students were able to be. When she was awake, she would sit and watch lectures without making a peep.
Usually.
Today was not one of those days.
It was clear that her mother was worried about the level of noise coming from the baby, so much so that she couldn’t concentrate on the lecture going on around him. Some of the students were giving the baby dirty looks, which truly was unfair, as it was a baby without much knowledge about things like social cues and classrooms.
After perhaps two full minutes of her child crying, with a panicked look in her eye, Jessie started to try to leave the classroom.
Gregory was left with a choice here. He could either let her leave this rather important midterm review to calm her baby down, or he could see how far the trust of his students went.
He stopped the lecture.
Jessie stopped walking for a second, then seemed mortified as she tried to reach the door faster, baby in her arms.
“May I talk to you for a second?” Gregory attempted.
“I’m so sorry, professor, I—she’s usually quiet, so I wasn’t expecting any of—I’m sorry, I really didn’t…”
“I know what it’s like. And you can feel free to say no to this if you want to, but, would you mind if I tried to calm the baby? Er, Daniela, is it?”
Daniela looked up as her name was called and stopped crying for a moment upon seeing this new person up close, before she started wailing once more.
Jessie was now struck with a choice that Gregory surely wouldn’t have been able to make, were he in this position.
“I want you to be able to hear what I’m saying for this midterm review. I promise I have lots of experience in calming children, and I understand if you don’t trust me. But if you do, I’d love to try.” He explained.
Jessie looked him in the eyes and he could see that she was exhausted. He felt that, somewhere in the recesses of his soul. He knew exactly how that felt.
“Okay,” she relented, handing the baby over to him.
“Thank you, Jessie. I’ll try not to let you down.”
She nodded gratefully, returning to her seat and not taking her eyes off of her child for a single second.
Gregory looked the girl in the eyes, starting to gently bounce her up and down as he slowly spun from left to right. She first looked at him in confusion and stopped crying, if only to get a better look at his face. Tears were still in her eyes as she looked up at him but she seemed to have calmed down significantly. After half a minute or so, she had stopped crying and even had given Gregory a minor smile. At that point he continued the lecture, baby safely tucked into his left arm, microphone in his right hand.
The lecture was rather interesting, as people seemed to want to pay more attention to the baby in his arms than to the midterm review. However, if they chose to pay attention to that, it was their loss. He had tried to keep their attention and they had given it to something else. The baby seemed to greatly enjoy her time in the spotlight of the classroom, with a few audible coos of affection after things that she’d done that were adorable.
Gregory was the first to admit that he’d gotten a bit distracted by some of the things himself, but it had been a long time since he’d had a baby to take care of, and this was a rather pleasant glimpse into the past.
When the class was over, he was thanked immensely by Jessie, who asked him for advice on just how he’d managed to calm the child down so well.
He was happy to oblige.
He was even happier to be told, at the end of the semester, that a few students had cut down on their childcare costs by simply bringing their children to his class, knowing that if something like that ever happened to them, Gregory would be happy to help.
He helped many other students over the course of the semester with their problems, even going so far as to be teased by his actual children that he loved the kids in his class more than he loved them.
It wasn’t true. He cared so deeply for the children precisely because they reminded him so much of his own. Their personalities, the small things they did, reminded him of what his children had done when they were younger, and he couldn’t keep a smile off his face as he thought about those children that he loved so dearly.