Mommy Driver

One day I came home from school and my mom was crying. She had just lost her job at the credit union. Severe morning sickness made her call out a lot when she was pregnant with my brother. She thinks that's why they decided to let her go.

Ten years earlier, in 1978, U.S. Congress passed an amendment to the sex discrimination section of the Civil Rights Act called the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. Unfortunately, our home state of Virginia is an "at-will" employment state, which means employers may terminate an employee at any time, for any reason or no reason at all. In other words, employers have a loophole that allows them to fire a new mom when it becomes inconvenient for them.

It was a bit of a family crisis. We needed two incomes to afford the mortgage and bills, not to mention the enormous cost of a new baby. After the initial panic wore off, my dad and I encouraged mom to look at it as an opportunity to find something she might like better. She wanted a job that would allow her to stay close to us kids as we grew up, something in the school system. Secretary? Administrator?

After looking into it, she learned that school bus drivers make a decent salary and instead of having to put my brother in daycare, she could bring him with her. That was the clincher. Mom earned her commercial driver’s license that summer and started getting familiar with her first bus route. She’d always had a knack for directions, which came in handy navigating a labyrinth of eerily similar suburban neighborhoods.

It was the first day of school for both of us. I remember waking up before sunrise to help Mom get settled. I watched the baby while she went through her morning checklist for the first time. School bus drivers are responsible for the daily care and maintenance of the bus, as well as the safety of every kid on board. Each morning she would circle the bus, check all the windows and mirrors, fill her up with diesel gas, open the hood and check the oil. Then there was something she’d do to the compressed air brakes. Whatever it was, it made a loud hissing sound.

Safety was always most important to her. She had this crate containing, among other things, a fire extinguisher, flares, and a first aid kit. It was held in place with a web of bungee cords so it didn’t slide around and spill its contents under the seats (which happened sometimes anyway). I was fascinated by the crate, imagining all kinds of disaster scenarios where this stuff might see some action. Fortunately for Mom, the only thing she’d have to use from the crate was the occasional band-aid.

Mom's bus didn't have air conditioning, but it had a CB radio like the ones truckers use. Most of the buses on rotation were old junkers that broke down frequently. When she turned the key there was only a fifty-fifty chance that the engine would actually start. If it wouldn’t start she’d have to take it to the mechanic and hustle through her checklist again on the spare bus they’d loan her while hers was in the shop. All of this was before she'd even picked up the kids!

First on board were the high schoolers. Most of them were nice kids and they all got a kick out of the driver's adorable infant. Riding around always made my brother sleepy, so he napped a lot of the time, but high schoolers would entertain him if he woke up and got fussy. The middle schoolers were the loudest, always testing mom’s boundaries with their awkward preteen angst. I was in third grade at the time, and surprisingly, none of my classmates seemed to notice or care that my mom drove a bus. Mom has a very friendly, outgoing personality. The kids loved her, besides, they had other things to tease me about like my hair and fashion choices.

After that first day, I started taking a different bus to school, so I didn’t have to wake up so early and I could ride with my friends. But I’d take mom’s bus home, waiting until the last kid was dropped off. Then I babysat while she parked, went around closing all 24 windows from the outside with a broomstick (brilliant school bus driver hack), and pumped up the brakes again before locking it up for the night and driving us home in her Buick. It was a long day for everyone, especially Mom.

Eventually, I started taking a different bus home. My brother went to preschool and my mom found another job. But the example she set had a lasting impression. Bus driving is a noble profession, one in which my mother excelled. Her experience taught me how hard work and adaptability will see you through when life is unfair.